A new Compensation

The money dried up. Businesses are in a tight spot. Bonuses are cut to the bone. Merit increases don’t merit much time because they’re put on hold. Stock options are underwater. So what’s left? Communication.

That’s right, COMMUNICATION IS THE NEW COMPENSATION.

When there’s no money to go around, it’s time to get back to basics. Talking to people. Talking about making R&D and operations work. Talking about competitiveness. And why you’re happy that the people you work with are there with you.

The money’s gone; the talk lives on. In these trying times, what you lack in rewards you can make up for in human interaction. Put down the Blackberry. Ditch the email. Stop with the voicemail. Talk to people. Get in touch. Communicate if you can’t compensate. (Yeah, I know that’s a wrong-headed construction, but I like how it sounds.)

So, Communication is the new compensation.

Chest Thumping - Is it O.K.?

Usain Bolt is the fastest man in the world. He won the 100-meter race in Olympics'o8 in 9.69 seconds. A world record. And I don’t like him.

If you’re a manager or in HR, you shouldn’t either. You see, Usain Bolt is an incredible talent. Perhaps the best sprinter ever. But I'd never like him. Know why? The chest thump saying “Look at me!” when he had 15 meters to go. Showing off. Had he run through the finish line instead of waving his arms and taunting his competitors, he could have done even better. Much better.

Sure, running is an individual sport. But there are lots of people around Usain Bolt who helped him run like he does. Do you think he thanked a single one in the interviews? Even mentioned them? Nope. It was me-me-me. While there’s a place for individual achievement — even extraordinary achievement —, there’s no place for chest thumping. That kind of self-centeredness just doesn’t work in business.

Be great. But know what got you there.

Want to be GREAT?

People have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.
–Bill Clinton at the Democratic National Convention, Aug. 27, 2008

This is a thought for a Nation, Leaders, and HR. If we want to be great in Human Resources or in any other field, we neither have to force people under us to treat us as great persons, nor we have to show what we are capable of doing. Just think for a while on the above saying, you'll get your answer. What do you interpret from these lines?

All we have to do is to show people, is the way and not just getting them to bend under our will. Don't show people not only the path, instead take them with you, or go along with them.

Be a real HUMAN BEING, but manage carefully!

Re-HR!!!

Human resources is going to be a different beast when this economic crisis is over. This isn’t going to be your father’s HR. Heck, this isn’t even going to be your HR when this is all over. This is one of those deals like freshman chemistry for pre-med: Take a look left and take a look right. Those people sitting next to you won’t be there by the time this class is over.
I’m not trying to be an alarmist. In fact, I think for the talented people in HR, this can be your shining moment. For people who are junior functionaries or are walking demonstrations of “The Peter Principle,” buh-bye. Have a nice day. Thanks for flying with us.
Here’s what is gonna happen: If you’re working in an affected industry, you”ll be asked to exit people. Those who aren’t in HR know this as “being fired.” Lots of people are going to lose their jobs. People you know. Friends. Family members. If you’re lucky, you won’t be asked to turn out the lights as the last person out the door. It’s gonna be a real headache. That’s the really bad stuff.
Here’s what else is gonna happen: Your best talent is going to get jumpy. Their stock options are underwater and have no chance of recovery. Pay raises — hah! Benefits? I’m gonna guess that even Google is going to cut back on their Skittles budget. And when times are tough, you need your best people. What you did during the halcyon days are going to come back in karma now. I hope you treated them well.
So now’s the time to rethink HR. It’s your time. It’s time to dig in, move fast, and make money. The time for thinking big thoughts is over. It’s time for action.

HR-effect

Yesterday I was just thinking that as I will take HR as my specialisation, so what can be its impact on my letter writing skills. So to know this I just tried writing a Love Letter. So this is what I call HR-effect.



I am very happy to inform you that I have fallen in Love with you since the 20th of October (Thursday). With reference to the meeting held between us on the 19th of Oct. at 1500hrs, I would like to present myself as a prospective lover. Our love affair would be on probation for a period of three months and depending on compatibility, would be made permanent. Of course, upon completion of probation, there will be continuous on the job training and performance appraisal schemes leading up to promotion from lover to spouse. The expenses incurred for coffee and entertainment would initially be shared equally between us. Later, based on your performance, I might take! up a larger share of the expenses. However I am broadminded enough to be taken care of, on your expense account.


I request you to kindly respond within 30 days of receiving this letter, failing which, this offer would be canceled without further notice and I shall be considering someone else. I would be happy, if you could forward this letter to your sister, if you do not wish to take up this offer.

Wish you all the best!

Thanking you in anticipation,


Yours sincerely,

HR Manager

HR and YOU

If you want human resources because you like to stick it to people, this movie is for you.

If you want human resources because it’s gossip central and you get the juiciest bones, this movie is for you.

If you want human resources because you heard that’s where all the rules are made, this movie is for you.

For the rest of you good people who want human resources to help people and move business forward, repeat this phrase: My karma ran over your dogma.

i - factor

You’ll never be old and wise if you were never young and crazy.

Sure, these are tough times in business. That goes double in HR. Still, it’s not time to sit back and do what’s always been done. It’s time for innovation.

Remember all those big ideas you had when you were young? Remember when words like “That’s the way we’ve always done it” made you shiver? Remember when you were going to save the world? How about starting today?

Let’s think about one big idea and implement it. Tired old HR programs aren’t there because they’re the best idea, they’re there because no one stood up and said, “Hey, I have a far better idea.” Well, now’s the time to take a risk. Step out. Play “Still Crazy After All These Years.”

Is SILENCE Golden?

You know how flight attendants and pilots never seem to shut up when the plane is on the ground or in clear air, but then as soon as there’s turbulence, nothing? Silence. You sit there in your seat, nervous and wondering what’s going on, and they don’t tell you a thing?


That’s what’s going on in a lot of businesses right now. Here’s a little communication hint: Silence is not golden when the economy is crumbling and people are scared. And here’s a little hint to employees: Your bosses are scared too.


So, it’s time for HR to step and be the calm in a storm. You know that your people can read. And what they’re reading right now is that there are lots of layoffs, unemployment is high and getting higher, the stock market is spinning like a whirligig, and their pay and benefits are affected. They’re sitting in their seats, nervous and wondering what’s going on. It’s time to tell them. ‘Silence is golden” is great for 3-year-olds. It doesn’t work for 30-year-olds.

Bad HR!!!

What if you were on a diet but only were allowed to weigh yourself once a year? How likely would you be to stick with it?

If your answer was, “Not a chance,” why is it okay to have once-a-year performance reviews? Does anyone actually think that one uncomfortable hour once a year is any substitute for effective leadership? Seriously? Why waste the time?

If you really want your performance management system to work it has to have two essentials:
1. It has to be a system
2. It needs to provide continuous feedback

If you’re doing anything else, it’s just a game to make the lawyers and rule makers happy. Bad HR is about blindly going where everyone has gone before.

What PEOPLE need is HOPE

Never underestimate the power of shared experience. When things are most dismal people need leadership to step up and offer hope. Then they can work together.

Sure, it’s easy it wallow in “Woe is me,” but the only way to work out of the doldrums is to know that hope is ahead. It’s not all gloom and doom in HR. Even in the face of the toughest economic situation in our lifetime, we can stand up and offer hope.

Learn UNDERWATER Swimming

Do you remember the first time you swam underwater? Did you hold your nose? Squeeze your eyes shut? Take a big gulp of air and dunk your head? Pop up in a second gasping, thinking you’d been under for a whole minute? Well, hold your breath a little longer. A lot longer. You’re going to be underwater for a year.

The tidal wave came in as the value of stocks declined. Employee stock options have been deluged. They’re underwater — that is, the grant price of their shares is higher than the current stock price. In fact, Silicon Valley Reporter says “more than 80% of Silicon Valley’s 150 largest publicly traded companies have employees holding underwater options.” And it’s not just tech companies. CFO Magazine reports that “close to 100 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs’ stock options are underwater” as of the first of the year. That means millions of employee options are underwater, too.

It’s getting worse. Heck, more than one-third of Google employees have underwater options. The S&P 500 had its worst year since 1937, down over 38%. And 2009 doesn’t look like it’s going to be any better. We’re in a deep recession and the water is rising higher above the price of employee stock options.

Yet, with all the tumult and economic strife, we need good employees to stay. We need them to focus on profitability. And we need their attention. One big element: Stock option repricing. That gets their head above water.

A number of companies are repricing their employee stock options — and many more will in 2009-2010. Repricing or exchanging underwater employee stock options isn’t easy. Companies rely on experts to help with the technical details. And gaining shareholder support is no small feat. But once an acceptable structure is worked out, how do you communicate the exchange to employees?

At the start of an exchange, you have to ask for options back in exchange for new ones. Often, that means exchanging a bunch of options for far fewer. Employees are skeptical. There are exchange ratios. Official Tender Offer documents. A limited time to make crucial decisions. Employees want to know what’s up.

RULES FOR FOOLS

Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.
–Henry David Thoreau


When the real importance of HR was known by different organisations, some rules and policies were also made which were strictly followed by each and every organisation. And believe me they really did it, and got a lot. All those rules were made when we were kids and few of us were not at all of any existence.

If you are not watching television, or not reading newspapers, I would like to tell you that the world economy is in HOLY CRAP MODE. Instead of taking the crisis in negative way, I would like to take it in positive way and just want to say that CRISIS IS A BEAUTIFUL OPPORTUNITY of taking out all rubbish non-sense from your organisation. Only fools will wait for the good economic conditions.

It will really shock you, but now those HR rules don't count anymore. It's time to challenge everything. To genuinely understand what motivates people we have to deeper and more deeper. Its not about saying "People don't work for money", its all about finding different ways to motivate them.

If you’re still to old HR rules because it’s the only thing you know, it’s time to practice this phrase: “You want fries with that?"

Great Management

You know what makes a difference in a company? Great management. I’m not talking about CEOs. Sure, they make decisions, but they’re typically so far away from what really happens in a company that they have little genuine influence. I’m talking about line managers and general managers, those people who work with the people who make the things and talk directly to your customers. Here’s what great managers do:

* Great managers anticipate problems. “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it,” said George Santayana. Managers are in place because they’ve been there, done that, got the t-shirt.
* Great managers support their people. That’s a huge difference — weak managers like to play “gotcha” with their people; great managers stand up for theirs.
* Great managers resolve problems first and ask what went wrong later. Blamestorming is far too prevalent in business, but it doesn’t work. Fix it, then figure out how to not to have it happen again is how great managers work.
* Great managers are hopeful. Management is about making choices, whether that is deployment of resources, setting priorities, or getting results. A little enthusiasm that the best days are in the future goes a long way.
* Great managers like people. Have you ever worked for a boss who got results, but did it by riding the backs of subordinates? That’s not management, that’s intimidation. Great management starts with a belief in people and a knowledge that the vast majority of people try to do the right thing.

Here’s a prescription for HR: Toss out those wasted training classes about employee engagement. Stop trying to do management workarounds. Get out there in the trenches and quit making up stupid policies that are designed to rein in the one knucklehead who breaks the rules. Teach managers about great management, and teach them to not lose their humanity doing their job.

10 Tenets for the New HR

Kick off your electric boots; shed you mohair suit; throw down your magazine. I’m not talking about fighting our parents out in the street to find who’s right and who’s wrong, but it’s time for something ageless. It’s time for The New HR.

Oh, but they’re weird and they’re wonderful: 10 Tenets for The New HR.

1. HR has one job: business success. Anything else is useless and a waste of air. If it doesn’t have to do with business, we’re not doing it.
2. HR isn’t the Complaint Department or your Kindergarten teacher. We’re going to teach people to grow up and stop wasting our time like they’re 5-year-olds who can’t share their toys.
3. We won’t accept mediocrity in HR. Human resources cannot be where people go when they can’t find meaningful employment. We’re going to cowboy up our talent. We want — we demand — the best and the brightest.
4. Nothing is sacred. We’re going to critically think about everything we do. And if we hear people saying “That’s the way we’ve always done it.” Well…don’t make me come over there.
5. We’re not in charge of the holiday party anymore. Yeah, that’s right. We aren’t the social secretaries. We have real jobs to do. See #1.
6. Business is gonna want a seat at our table. The time of putting HR at the kid’s table is over. You said, “Our business is about our people.” Now, with way fewer of them, it’s going to be true. Like scary true. Take a number.
7. Rules are for fools. We’re tossing out the rule book. We’re not hall monitors anymore. We’re going to expect grownups to behave like grownups. Or they’re gone. Any questions?
8. We’re going to make pay-for-performance work. It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission. So forgive us if we insist that the best people make the most money. It’s not a rule — it’s a fact.
9. No more workarounds to make up for weak managers. Please see #1. Our job is to make our company work most efficiently. We won’t be making up policies to make up for bad managers. It’s either up or out.
10. We’re going to put the “human” back in Human Resources. They’re not numbers on a spreadsheet or “human capital” that can be traded like a commodity. They’re people, with fears and hopes and dreams. And for a few hours a day, they come to our place. We’ll make sure that (along with #1) we remind ourselves every day that what we do is about people. Mediocre people = mediocre business. Great people = great business.

For those who take HR as not at all important, I have these 10 tenets of new HR for them.It's a new time.It's our time.It's HR time.

EVENTS SHAPING HR!!

Thinking about the important things that happened in 2008, I think it’s appropriate to invoke James Carville. “It’s the economy, stupid.” Pretty much everyone knows we’re in a recession. A recession that’s changed everything.

With that in mind, here are the Top 10 Events of 2008 That Will Shape HR in 2009.

1. U.S. Presidential Election
   We elected Barack Obama, an African American, president. Hillary Clinton, a woman, ran against him for the Democratic nomination. Sarah Palin, another woman, was on the Republican slate as the Vice Presidential candidate.
   DIVERSITY, TALENT MANAGEMENT, LEADERSHIP.
2. AIG Bailout
   The U.S. Government provided AIG with about $150 Billion to rescue it from collapsing. The reasons for AIG’s decline are complex. There were allegations of wrong-doing. Our economy had survived Enron. Large companies had failed before. This was different. It triggered a wide-spread loss of consumer, investor, and employee confidence.
   ETHICS & SUSTAINABILITY, BENEFITS, STAFFING, TALENT MANAGEMENT, BUSINESS PARTNER
3. Votes on Gay Marriage
   Californians began performing same sex marriages in June then voted to outlaw it in November. Connecticut legalized gay marriage.
   DIVERSITY, BENEFITS
4. Smartphone Sales Skyrocket
   2008 U.S. Sales of smartphones grew at a rate of more than 70% each quarter over the corresponding quarter in 2007. Comparable global growth rates were in the range of 10-20% – still huge in a stagnant economy. More people are more connected than ever.
   HR TECHNOLOGY, BUSINESS PARTNER, ORGANIZATIONAL & EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT
5. Tina Fey!
   The uber-talented Tina Fey parlayed her Sarah Palin likeness and her considerable imitation skills into huge fame, a multi-million dollar book deal and a second stint on SNL. Oh, and she also won and Emmy for 30 Rock. In case anyone missed it, she capitalized on a golden opportunity.
   TALENT MANAGEMENT, LEADERSHIP, COMPENSATION, BUSINESS PARTNER
6. Something Rotten in Albany, Springfield, and…
   NY Governor Eliot Spitzer resigned after admitting being involved with a prostitute. Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was accused of selling Barack Obama’s senate seat. Detroit’s mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, was indicted on eight felony charges, including perjury, obstruction of justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and misconduct in office because of an affair. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Alphonso Jackson, resigned as federal investigators looked into accusations that he steered housing contracts to friends.
   ETHICS, ETHICS, ETHICS (and LEADERSHIP)
7. Housing Bubble Bursts
   Unprecedented rise in housing prices. Unqualified borrowers. Subprime mortgages. Credit crunch. Foreclosures. Economic crisis. Pop.
   BENEFITS, ETHICS & SUSTAINABILITY
8. In With Marijuana, Out With Trans Fats
   Michigan legalizes medicinal marijuana. Massachusetts decriminalizes marijuana. And, liberal California bans trans fats. I won’t even try to figure this one out.
   BENEFITS (CDHP)
9. Wall Street Bonuses
   Executive pay was all over the news. All of a sudden, everyone is a comp. designer. Now that we’re using our tax money to save some of these companies, the government is taking an interest too.
   COMPENSATION, STAFFING, TALENT MANAGEMENT, ETHICS
10. Unemployment Rate Highest in 26 Years
    The unemployment rate is above 6.7 percent and it’s rising steadily. It’s higher than it’s been since 1982. The scary thing –- people don’t like to RIF people before Christmas. Beware the Ides of January.
    EMPLOYEE RELATIONS, LABOR RELATIONS, TALENT MANAGEMENT, BENEFITS, COMPENSATION, STAFFING, BUSINESS PARTNER, LEADERSHIP, ETHICS & SUSTAINABILITY