Author: admin

The world is going through a very challenging phase. Covid-19 has impacted people, families, economy, and work among a lot of other things. Work has become even more challenging than ever before. Due to social distancing and being quarantined, people are feeling emotionally disturbed, and due to sudden interruption of necessary services such as electricity, internet connectivity, malfunction of electronic device such as laptop/ Desktop/ earphones people are mentally frustrated and due to non-availability of maids we end up taking care of household chores apart from our office work which greatly impacts work-Life balance. This whole change of cycle affects the relationships at home which again hamper work and the overall productivity of employees. “Work from Home” is quite new to most of us, it has its own pros and cons. It is high time to accept the change and to manage work efficiently and improve productivity.

Maslow’s Theory of Motivation:

Let us consider Maslow’s Theory. According to this theory, every person is capable and has the desire to move up the hierarchy toward a level of self-actualization, referring to the need people have to achieve their full potential. Unfortunately, progress is often disrupted by a failure to meet lower level needs. This is very much related to our current scenario. Most of us have the benefit of fulfilling physiological needs like food, water, shelter and a few others may have difficulty in this level as well. The next level is Safety Needs; this includes Job security, Financial Security, Health Security. In the current scenario people are facing challenges in Safety needs due to Pay Cuts, Fear of losing jobs, Lack of performance appraisals as this is the ideal season for many organizations to run their PMS, fear of being infected by COVID.

What can be done by the Management to reduce the impact of Security Needs?

• Try not to cut down jobs and assure your employees that their jobs are secure.
• Do not practice forced pay cuts. Be open, talk with your employees about the challenges that the business is facing at present and work on voluntary pay cuts, making sure that this is a short term plan. Keep the data confidential and avoid any judgments as we never know what financial issues each one is facing.
• In case if the Performance appraisals are deferred make sure that you communicate effectively with the team and you can also start working on performance based Incentives if applicable as this will also act as a motivating factor for employees and thus improving their performance.
• Once the people get back to work, maintain a healthy environment following the guidelines for prevention of COVID.
• Provide benefits like Medical Insurance for employees

What can be done by individuals to reduce the impact of Security Needs?

• Plan your budget, spend less and save more. (For Example we can now save the money that we spent on travelling for work)
• Upgrade your skills by learning something relevant to your work. Wide skill sets will be an added advantage to sustain in a job as well as to procure a new job.
• Do not panic, and follow health guidelines.

Considering the next level which is the “Social Need” At this level, the need for emotional relationships drives human behavior. Some of the things that satisfy this need include Friendships, relationships, Family, Social groups, Community groups and religious organizations. In the current situation it has become hard for us to meet our need for socializing. This could lead to loneliness, depression, anxiety, irritability and an emotional disturbance which leads to lack of focus of work and decreased productivity.

What can be done by the Management to reduce the impact of Social Needs?

• Conduct employee engagement activities and games and focus.
• Connect with your employees via virtual team meetings.

What can be done by individuals to reduce the impact of Social Needs?

• Meditate daily, exercise regularly, develop an indoor hobby (Cooking, Reading online books, Watching some online series/movies, listening to music)
• Get support from counselors if needed
• Develop a work life balance and spend some quality time with your family and friends through a phone call.

A few general guidelines:

• Do not procrastinate work.
• Be transparent.
• Be Accountable of your duties.
• Dedicate your time for work.
• Plan and schedule your day.
• Create a culture of openness and trust.
• Communicate effectively.]

Crisis moments create opportunity. Problems and crises ignite our greatest creativity and thought leadership as it forces us to focus on things outside the norm – Sam Cawthorn.

“Remote work is the future of work.” — Alexis Ohanian, Reddit

For people like me who can work with just one partner i.e., Laptop can easily work remotely. I have been working remotely for 3 years now, and the way I work with my team is the most enjoyable, efficient, and productive one. We meet, we set goals, we share ideas, we ask queries, and have fun together! Of course, this wouldn’t have been possible without collaboration tools like Slack, Zoom, Google Docs, Slack, Trello, Skype, and Hangouts. The credit goes to these support systems who allow us to work together without being under the same roof. I appreciate the technology that brings people from 2 opposite ends of the world on the same zoom/slack screens.

Few people enjoy working from home and few find it challenging. If you ask me, my personal choice will always go with “working by wearing whatever’s most relaxing for the temperature” and at my ease. There are great benefits to one’s mental health and productivity that come with working out of your personal space.

While work from home gives you flexibility, it also comes with its own bundle of massive challenges. The most common ones are here:

– The burden of house chores with office work. This makes you think, are you working from home or working at home.

– Feeling isolated and disconnected with the rest of your team members who are working at an office and taking the benefit of HR engagement activities as well.

– Distractions because you are always responsible to answer those doorbells and attend to the delivery man.

– No reason to wear good clothes hence no motivation.

– Irritability towards the loved ones who keep disturbing while you are attending a zoom call or working on a report

Enough!!! It is what you think and starts hating your job because it gives you way too much flexibility than you need!!!!!! Hey, calm down. Here come a few tips which will make you love your work from home flexibility, make it more enjoyable, operative, and sustainable.

– Plan your day. A day planner will help you monitor your productivity. Ensure you do not consider your entire day as free just because you are working from home. Ensure you maintain a routine by adding tasks in your calendar like when to touch-base with your teammate for accounts? What time to work on a recurring weekly activity? Remember to include both work and important home tasks so that they are less likely to interconnect.

– If you use a laptop to work, change your place often by visiting Starbucks to work and enjoy your daily-update call with a cup of coffee. Considering the global pandemic, a Starbucks café can be replaced with your home balcony. Just remember changing the work location will give you positive vibes and a good feeling about your work. Trust me the location does matter!!!

– Watch your posture!!! Always work in a good position which will help you minimize your bodily pain and improve your productivity

– Play your much-loved music track while you do the daily repetitive work and when you do not need much brainstorming. This will help you refresh and enjoy while working.

– Enjoy your work appreciation emails with your loved ones by giving them a big and tight hug and celebrating by cooking a yummy dinner.

The most important takeaway about becoming a remote worker is that you need to set your process if you want to be productive and maintain work-life-balance.

Good luck!

In India roughly 1% of India’s population are deaf, and currently I am experiencing this one percent of population by recruiting them for my client. My client is in the business of delivery process and hiring deaf candidates for the position of delivery boys. I now lead this process of hiring deaf candidates for almost 3-4 months and its really been a good exposure of mine into the deaf community of Mumbai.

When I was shortlisted for my current position, at the time of interview I was told that this is really a hardworking job, there will be a lot of field work and there will also be a need of learning a sign language. So, with all these I accepted my responsibilities, I accepted the role I was going to play and I started working towards it.

I still remember, I had a great start into this type of recruitment because on the first day of my job I visited a job fair at NASEOH. And trust me this was the point in my life where I find myself blessed and grateful for whatever I have in my life.  Why? Because there were almost 1000 of handicapped students who were striving hard to get a job in that Job Fair. And after looking at their energy, their positivity towards life, I was indeed very surprised. I must have screened 150-200 candidates that day, I have never been so exhausted much in my life. But above all these things at the end of the day, I was feeling blessed because I was loving the work and I was extremely satisfied though it was just my first day I felt I achieved a lot.

With this energy later in my first week where I got in touch with many NGO’s and their coordinators. And after that I have visited many NGO’s all over Mumbai. First as their HRBP, I used to discuss with the respective coordinator of NGO and used to discuss what are our needs, what types of candidates we want. And after the discussion we used to conduct the first Interview at NGO only, it was more like screening of a candidate. Here I used to check where the candidate has work before, where the candidate stays etc. However while selecting the candidates, above all the things I used to consider one point and that is whether candidate has the necessary drive for a job or not?

Many candidates that I met seemed to be carefree. So, for me it was very necessary to quickly understand the mindset of candidate and i.e. is he really interested in job or not.I not only make candidates understand their job role but also (just the way I was), I even clear the doubts of their parents because they were worried about the fact that now their ward is going to work somewhere.Hence It was necessary for me to gain the confidence of the concerned parents.

I have now recruited fifty handicapped candidates among which 6 have become the permanent employees of the client and rest are in their training period. I’m also looking forward to recruit more and more candidates but only those who are hungry for a job and who is much curious about their career and goals.

I have always believed God gives us few chances only in our whole life and through which we can make a beautiful life for ourselves. So ultimately, it’s on us whether we are going to give our absolute best or not.

As a person I am so self-motivated after working with those who are challenged, I am also a lot more self-confident. The most important thing I have learnt from them is that I am going to give every drop of sweat, every drop of blood, every ounce of energy I have to give my absolute best towards my work.

If you can’t explain it simply, You don’t understand it well enough

~Albert Einstein

Everything starts with communication. It is oxygen for relationships. You communicate to explain, express, encourage, motivate, and inspire. But, do we often misinterpret effective communication?

This got me thinking if the first rule of communication were to make it simple, then when did we start making it so complex?

we always try to do effective communication at the workplace with complexity. The more nuanced the message and filled with jargon, the more sophisticated themessenger. we often try to impress by flaunting our vocabulary and language proficiency, when, In fact, I think we should be focusing on delivering an impressive message. In today’s busy world, people expect a short and simple message which gives a clear picture of the topic which is going on.

In business, effective communication is the prime thing that we focus on. Whether we are communicating with customers or employees, I think simplicity is key. While presenting in a meeting, have you ever felt that you are addressing an empty room — your words are very clear and you are very confident enough to talk about the topic
as soon as people arrive in meeting room we start stammering we feel nervous and underconfident,It’s because people who are sitting in front of us they are our manager, customer, or people to whom we are trying to impress and suddenly we try to use tough words or again we try to use different jargons or vocabulary just to impress the opposite person, Because of which we end up doing some goof-up while presenting

Instead of doing this why can’t we just be ourself and try to impress our customer, Managers, Employees just being ourself and making them understand the topic in a short, simple and in a relevant way. Which is easy to understand to both the parties.

From now “let’s try to be our self and keep our word short and simple”
And let’s remember golden rules to impress another person by our communication

• Less is More
• Keep it relevant
• And K.I.S.S(Keep it simple and short)

Firstly let’s understand who is a Manager? Dictionary meaning of Manager is a person responsible for controlling or administering an organization or group of staff. In other words, the manager is responsible for overseeing and leading the work of a group of people.

Now we move on to the roles and responsibilities of a Manager

• Hiring and staffing
• Training new employees
• Coaching and developing existing employees
• Dealing with performance problems and terminations
• Supporting problem resolution and decision-making
• Conducting timely performance evaluations
• Translating corporate goals into functional and individual goals
• Monitoring and controlling expenses and budgets
• Tracking and reporting scorecard results to senior management
• Planning and goal-setting for future periods

In order to be able to deliver the above listed roles and responsibilities, one needs to possess certain set of skills as mentioned below:

• Leadership/ Mentoring and Coaching
• Communication/ Inter Personal skills
• Collaboration
• Project Management
• Critical Thinking
• Finance

In my career of close to one and half decade, I have had experience of reporting to different categories of managers. Some of these managers were just a few years more experienced, some close to a decade and some were from different generation and era (who had been part of IR and evolution of HR in the industry). In terms of designation, they were just one designation above me or Department Head or at VP level. This background is given to highlight the point that, no matter what level the Manager is, one should be able to connect to the junior most member of the team and most of my managers could do that.

The point I want to drive here is that, no matter what generation my managers belonged to or their position, the skill and attitude they displayed is what I liked, learned, absorbed and practise. First learning is the need to genuinely know your team, each and every member, their name/ background/ talent/ family. This is essential for you to connect with them and develop a rapport. Second, what are their strengths/ areas of developments/ their aspirations accordingly develop and nurture them. Third, stand for your team in challenging situations or during false allegations. You will not only earn their loyalty and respect for lifetime but set a good example for prospective managers. Fourth, appreciate your team members in public, to management, to other department heads. This will motivate the employee multi fold. Fifth, Self educating/ Self Development, another very important aspect to sustain and grow in the managerial role. You need to have an edge above your team, for you to be able to guide them and for them to learn from you. Lastly, inspire the team, educate them, train them, enhance their skills, and challenge them. Not that all will become managers but your job is to ensure that you put best efforts for all and identify the worthy ones. All of above qualities are put to practise by me whenever I wear the ‘HAT’ of a Manager. I still connect back with these Managers when I need guidance in my professional life. I respect them and consider them my ‘Gurus’, in the space of my HR experience.

The message that I want to emphasize through this article is that first, one does not become a manager only during the reviews or while setting the goals or while building a team or in crisis, it’s a continuous role, every single day you wear that ‘HAT’. Second, one will voluntarily or involuntarily imbibe the qualities of their managers, so let’s ensure we consciously develop all positive and constructive qualities and not inculcate the harmful or unproductive ones.  Third, let’s be responsible towards the society we live in by identifying, developing and nurturing such talent, not just in the organisations we are associated with but in every opportunity or interaction, FOR the betterment of our organisation, our community and our country at large. I think we owe that to our Managers. Lastly, I believe that if we at individual level are a good human being/ positive/ happy state of mind, we will carry this attitude in the role of a Manager and set a good example.