Author Archives: Shaivee Kumawat

Groupism in Office – Causes, Effects & Remedies

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We, humans, tend to settle with the same frequency people, and when these similar set of interest drives these people, it gives birth to a concept called group or a Community( in social scenarios). Yes being in groups and supporting each other, taking care, understanding, tuning well with each other is a good thing, but if done in access then leads to destruction. One should not sell their grandmother for petty things. It means one should not convert that friendliness to bad habits of staying in the same belief, being inflexible, or having false feelings for others. This kind of groupism is seen in almost every sector of society.

Groupism in Office

It is about favouring the closed ones, buttering the powerful, or fulfilling one’s mean for influencing people. This is often used as a strategy to discriminate against people for their own personal, professional, or social welfare. In the long run, this practice undervalues real talent, being pessimistic, and demotivates hardworking fellas.

Moreover, this adds depression, mental stress, doomed feeling, and a lack of charm in a person. It is often seen that at workplaces, these kinds of practices are prevalent either to flatter higher position holders or to satisfy personal needs or motives. That is why it should be regulated by the HRs of the firm, to manage these malpractices, to save the reputation and fuel growth of the company. 

For example, nepotism in Bollywood, a community in social gatherings, corporate groupism, ethnicity belief, etc. Today we will be discussing Groupism from a certain depth. 

Office Politics

It is as simple as messing around, gossiping, or spreading rumours. According to an Accountemps survey – it says, 46% of employees voted that office politics behaviour is seen most often in their companies. The reason behind these practices is found to be gaining favour by flattering the boss, snatching others’ credit, wrecking co-workers’ projects, or demotivating a person. When this drama takes root in any organization, eventually a decline in firms’ productivity is seen, less engagement of workers, halfhearted participation, and uneasy feeling to share ideas. This creates a lot of problems for the company CEOs, business owners, or the management department. So it is a heartfelt request to the employees for not creating this, and if felt at any corner of the company, then they should stay away from it and if needed or desired should be reported to an appropriate authority.

Causes of Groupism

To detect the origin of any cause is very important, to treat it effectively and quickly. Some of the causes are-

  • Showing superiority– Many a time, out of habit or to get a feeling of very acknowledged and reputed person, a person ends up bragging about his/ her qualities or deeds and tends to create a particular group. And not to forget, that person feels very safe and comfortable in that group.
  • Intending on someone to quit their job– This kind of groupism is practised out of ill feelings and disrespect for someone. Here a certain set of people/a person is intentionally hurt out of no unforeseen reasons. 
  • Buttering of a senior– To be ‘an eye candy’ of a boss’/senior someone overdoes, shows up frequently, or brags about his/her work to be in good books of a senior, to quickly gain a promotion, good appraisal or some other incentives. 
  • Lack of mutual communication– This is a hidden devil, which needs proper care, and the only remedy for it seen so far is – Employee Engagement. To avoid misconceptions, misunderstandings, and false feelings in the team, a good channel of communication should be built.
  • Inflexible to modify a good build notion– There are always a few people present everywhere who belongs to the category of – “What I have said is correct !”, “No! Sorry I do not want to listen to you and understand your point.” or “I’ll strongly stick to my point, no matter whatsoever happens.” Beware of these people as there is no found solution to these kinds of mentalities yet. 

Effects of Groupism

Groupism adversely affects organisations in various ways like

  • A loss of talent
  • A gradual increase in Lawsuit risk
  • A demotivated and negative environment
  • A big unhealthy challenge for the newbies
  • A downfall in the firm’s productivity
  • Degraded Employee morale
  • Unwanted and unknown conflicts 

Remedies to Groupism

As this activity can not be seen clearly but can be predicted only through actions and the company’s result. So this must be dealt with mutual coordination of a company and employee both.

  • For an Employee– To be an asset to a society or a firm, follow certain rules in life-
    • Behave with strict Professionalism. Please!
    • Avoid your emotions to control you at the workplace.
    • Distance yourself from unhealthy discussions, gossips, or a rumour spreading channel.
    • Avoid misconceptions, but being in regular touch with a trusted senior.
    • Your end goal should be quality performance and productive team spirit. 
  • For Company Heads– Wanting better results from the workforce they may practice-
    • Make Strict laws, rules, and regulations
    • Strict professional environment
    • Offering equal and appropriate opportunities to each individual
    • Trying to keep as many things as possible in the documented format.
    • Organizing certain informal meetups or parties

Conclusion

See there is a very clear understanding of it because one might lie to an individual, but not to thyself. One would have a clear understanding and feeling that they are on the wrong path or doing wrong. So kindly undo all the previous tasks done and do not repeat them in the future. It will be good for an individual and a company or a society as a whole. Before groupism takes up its strong roots alike caste and creed or gender inequality as in India, it is high time for us to understand its drawbacks and uproot it immediately from our surrounding environment.

 

What is Employee Retention, Why is it important & how to retain employees

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Employee Retention Meaning

Let us break apart the term Employee Retention and understand the concept of Employee Retention. We all know that RETENTION refers to the ability to uphold, keeping, maintaining, or surviving through something or specific phase. Moreover, Employee Retention concerns the ideology of keeping the employees in an organization happy and content in the long run. Employee Retention can be done by laying various policies and practices, a work-friendly environment, healthy culture, rules, and regulations, which let the employees stick to an organization for a longer time. It undergoes various steps and sacrifices to achieve employee retention for the maximum time.

Employee Retention Importance

Now we have heard a lot about the importance of Employee Retention by various phrases, but its time to understand its importance from a depth in different ways-

  • Hiring requires a lot of resources: Following the entire journey from drawing job descriptions, selecting universities for pool drives, inviting and managing candidates there, going through the resumes, taking interviews, undergoing the differential screening procedure, shortlisting, grilling the candidates to get a refined version of them, and then finally followed by training. This entire journey is crucial and requires patience, skills, time, capital, and utmost management.
  • Grooming a candidate: A new fresher is like a clay molded and baked at regular intervals to extract maximum outputs. If the employee leaves the firm, the company would lose dearly. How much loss a company will undergo? Moreover, a redundant and frustrating effort of HR will be costed in this entire cycle. 
  • Market competition: Today, everyone is smart, intelligent, and selfish of their own’s gain and pain, and when coming to leaving a job, there is a high risk of joining the market rival by that employee. It may result in disclosing confidential company data, company policies, or strategies. However, to avoid these circumstances, an undertaking document is made signed by the candidate, and also strict laws are laid out.
  • Quality time spent in an Organization: As someone has stayed for a longer period knows the exact requirement, working culture, and ideologies of a company, and tunes well with others, also become a mentor for others. They perform better than individuals who change jobs frequently. Spending more time with an organization is also a trait of loyalty and trustworthiness of a person.
  • Time taken for adjustment: One needs time to know the team members, working culture, improving performance, befriending fellow mates, and trusting them. The team bonding is built through team activities: a lot of team collaborations, discussions, solving challenges and working together. All of these processes cost time, which is costly. So why to waste the company’s time on such irregular adjusting intervals. 
  • Important for a company to retain value: Every organization runs on its talented and hardworking smart people. These people are very creative and stand unique by their values. Losing a chance to retain employees equals losing a performing talent. 

How to retain employees

There is always a right way and an appropriate methodology to solve a problem efficiently and effectively. Although the term EMPLOYEE RETENTION was pretty easy to understand, even if someone has not got the exact essence, I assure you you will get to know a lot about it after reading these strategies. So without wasting much of the time, let’s take a glance at the various methods to improve or establish employee retention in an organization

  1. It all starts with the recruitment– “Retention starts right from the beginning, from the application process to screening applicants to choosing who to interview,” says Dan Pickett, CEO of Nfrastructure. Remember to build that trust and outstanding quality of yours to the candidate. Be sure that you pick the right candidate, give appropriate training and resources to them, and maintains a personnel touch with them. It is similar to investment; the longer hold it, the better would be the returning goods. 
  2. Benefitting the employees– You are running a company to fulfill your wishes and our paying a person to do some random tasks so that you make money out of it. Fine! Not to forget you are paying them( fair enough). But they are human beings too, isn’t it somewhere your responsibility to keep them happy? Yes? So try to invest a little amount on their health benefits, working location choices, personal grooming, paying good money, or simply providing them with transportation facilities.
  3. Flexible working schedule or working hours– Time is changing, so does the working culture. Don’t you think one must instead focus on the result rather than the working style? Everyone is unique; some might like working in the daytime; some may be a night geek. You should set them flexible on working hours, productivity, and working schedule. Just assign them the task and headlines, be there as a mentor, but don’t sit over their heads like bosses and rule them after each second. Instead, be a leader, understand them, and spend the journey with them. 
  4. Appreciating open and comfortable communications– Do not create an overrated strict environment, that people tend to think thrice before speaking and keep their mouths shut. NO! Treat them as your friend, welcome their suggestions, understand their grievances, and mentor them. If questions are raised, do not turn up your ego or anger. Employees ask questions only at workplaces where people feel a belongingness and want things to improve. An open-door policy is an effective way to establish a culture of open communication. Give them a feeling of a valued employee, by simply listening to them.  
  5. Concern on personal growth – Everyone strives for personal development and aspires to work at a place where they can bloom and enhance themselves. So being an employer, you should create opportunities, augment the working experience, regular promotions, or learning culture for the employees. Provide them with the latest skill training, regular sessions, or collaborative workshops. 
  6. Assure the quality of the entire working chain– Often, we miss checking on the seniors mentoring the freshers or the junior employees. Sometimes the quality inconsistency creates & causes a void whenever tried to detect a loophole. To avoid this practice, top-to-bottom and the reverse way anonymous surveys to detect the actual pain point. This is particularly important for average performers, as they often lack the quality of self-motivation that characterizes high-performing employees. 
  7. Immediate action on the loopholes– Don’t procrastinate the decisions of firm welfare. When you are sure about something, practice it, if not search about it, until you conclude. You must find the wrong patterns and address them before it is too late, and you end up losing value. Measure productivity at regular intervals and deploy an employee engagement survey. 
  8. Building future-ready and resistant to unfit conditions workforce– Were you aware of the COVID19 pandemic arrival a couple of years back? No right? Economic downswing, or a dramatic dip in profitability, is a significant cause of turnover. Employees want to harbor on a safer side, and they leave that company immediately. Such phenomena pull out talent from your company. But if you prepare the workforce beforehand, offer financial support, and instill confidence in the company’s future, you can prevent significant turnover. 
  9. Time for a reward– Out of human tendency, everyone wants to feel appreciated for their work. As soon as you like or value any a of an individual, make a habit of thanking them, a written gift card, an incentive pay, a day off, a dine away, or giving them the honor of badge to them. This will keep them motivated, enthusiastic, and a craving to perform better.

To conclude, I would like to say that it is time for you to understand your working force, converse with them, and then decide which strategy to use to fix the organization’s retention leak.

Employee Induction – An HR’s Guide to Successful Employee Onboarding

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Do you remember the day, when you toddled to the doorstep of the kindergarten and was endorsed in complete vacuousness?  You feel how awkward, insecure, and bland one can experience. The same sort of feeling is felt at every new stage, new place, or with a new relationship of life. That is why a friendly and relaxing introduction or say a quick warm-up is essential. In this article, we would be discussing Employee Induction or Employee Orientation.

Employee Induction is the initial step of anyone’s corporate life which involves a warm welcome, introduction of employees among themselves, organizing savoring food, and preparing them for their respective roles. The company’s culture, important personalities like the HR team, VPs, Directing Head, etc are introduced, along with the pathways and of the company building.

A prosperous Employee Induction process provides a chance for the organizations to easily sell themselves to the new employees or can say a quick show-off( sometimes), and if went smooth, then can significantly increase the retention of staff, become the WOW brand, and reduces the time for a new employee to settle and feel cozy into the new working environment.

Employee Induction is similar to an event, so simply figure out all the requirements and necessities of it, in an Employee Induction checklist

As it would be someone’s most awaited day with spice and salt of excitement and clumsiness both, so through every way it has to be made perfect and a memorable one. So here is a list of certain points to retain while organizing one good induction program

What to include in an Employee Induction

  1. The company ethics, culture, history, products and services, and the working culture’s essence should be themed on the first day.
  2. The significance of the job role along with the candidate’s potential should be well explained.
  3. The infrastructure of the company, a guiding map, its departments, and the other utility corners should be guided.
  4. The Employee’s future department along with his or her desk must be introduced with a broad welcoming smile.
  5. The rules and regulations, objectives, practices along with the Personnel policy should be mentioned.
  6. Working hours, vacation policies, overtime, safety measures, leisure hours, reporting format, etc should be well- explained.
  7. Social benefits, other brand associations, recreation services, and the quality and quantity of clients the company hold.
  8. Opportunities, salary hikes, promotions, transfers, suggestion schemes, and job satisfaction should be channeled there itself, with the introduction of all the major senior bosses of the company.

Who hosts Employee Induction?

Generally, it is done by the senior post holders of a firm, especially the HRM department, if someday they feel that it has to be done by some other team then the best responsibility taken will be the new employees superior. For example, the technical department may inform them about their desks and cabins, the operational team of the employment contracts, etc. This way can relax the new employee because they will be making a new friend, getting indulged ion the company along with participating in social connections. The hosting of the induction should not be restricted by certain parameters or a department, whomsoever wants to participate should be involved and make it a better one. They will then perhaps make it their responsibility for ensuring that the new employee integrates into the company with the best balance of everything+.

Objectives of an Employee Induction

See if something has to be done, then let us do it in a better way, do get associated with some of the objectives, to maintain the consistency of efforts. Some of the possible objectives might be –

    • Creating a positive atmosphere and spreading good vibes to give a comfortable environment to the newbies.
    • Addressing the entire team and giving them space to interact with their fellow mates too.
    • Increasing comfort and the feeling of belongingness, by sharing their experience of their first day.
    • Imparting vital information with them to befriend them with the corporate culture, firm’s policies and procedures, and the infrastructure.
    • Sharing the ethics and values of the organization with furthermore job-specific information.

I do not see any harm in creating a congenial and happy environment for the future team. The freshers are onboarded and from tomorrow would be called today’s fellow team. For that, they need to undergo all the internal details of the company, its procedure, the training, seniors with a relaxed mindset. Any negligence with the thought of a denial of induction or orientation might land the company with high labor turnover, misconceptions & confusion, and costing their pockets and clock both.

Employee Onboarding Best practices

The below examples are some of the tried and passed tips for you to implement in your cases.

  1. Welcome them with some gifts, followed with a social gathering, and then closed with a brisk high tea or something.
  2. After the entire content delivery is over, give them a space to raise their questions and hence a chance to come in the notice.
  3. Indulge them in certain activities, so that there are certain chances for interaction among them.
  4. Being more precise about corporate planning, one might even plan a schedule for the upcoming week or the first 15 days or so.
  5. Never ever try to exaggerate anything. It will create a bad impression.

To conclude I would like to say that, celebrating certain days is considered to be good, and starting an important phase of life with positivity will yield higher benefits. On keeping the employees happy, it will create homely behavior welcoming threaded benefits.

Top 10 Best Recruitment Startups in India

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Naukri.com, Google Jobs, Facebook Jobs and LinkedIn are the biggest players in the Recruitment Industry in India. While Recruitment Startups also face tough competition from ~23,000 Traditional Recruitment Agencies in India, some Recruitment Companies have carved a niche for themselves. 

In a competitive industry like Recruitment, some curious minds are trying to find out if a smarter way to recruit exists for companies. The beneficiaries of the e-commerce wave in India were the customers and here in Recruitment would be the millions of Job-seekers & Companies. Here I will be talking about some successful Indian Recruitment startups which have evolved through time and have created a place in the Indian market. The Recruitment industry is already touching over $400 billion worldwide & the sheer pedigree of the Indian entrepreneurs in the HR Space makes us believe that the next unicorn might just come from the Recruitment Industry. 

Selection Criteria

: Ideally, this should be based on Client Experience, User (Job-seeker Experience), Client Retention, User Retention, no. of Jobs, no. of candidates placed etc. However, these parameters can be difficult to measure & sometimes not available in the public domain. We have, therefore for the sake of simplicity chose Alexa World Rank of the site to rank the startups in the descending order. Feel free to share your views on alternate measurement metrics to update the list below

Top 10 Recruitment Startups in India

1. IIMJOBS and HIRIST

Both startups were founded by an IIM Indore Alumnus Tarun Matta in the year 2008(IIMJOBS ) and 2010( HIRIST). Matta is himself a Math geek, Enterprise Sales Specialist, and has a rich experience in the field of technology, recruiting and IT services industry. Before establishing Hirist, Matta worked with organizations like CSC, Neilsoft, and Alcatel Lucent in the capacity of a Business Analyst and Sales Manager post. This startup acted as the bridge between the recruiter and the candidate by providing free posts. It has over 5 lakh active users registered and featuring some of the best jobs in Banking and Finance, Consulting, Research and Analytics, Sales and Marketing, HR, IT and Operations, BPO, and Legal sectors. It is the largest recruitment site focused on the premium segment of the market working with about 350 companies such as Hindustan Unilever, ICICI Bank, Credit Suisse, IBM, Accenture, Flipkart, MakeMyTrip, Amazon, Zomato and helps them recruit great managerial and tech talent with ease. The company was acquired by Naukri.com in 2019. Alexa world rank of HIRIST is 12,156 and is 9,247 for IIMJOBS

2. CUTSHORT

Cutshort floated in the year 2015 by Nikunj Verma. It is one of the HR Tech startups which is leveraging Artificial Intelligence to change India’s $25 Billion recruitment industry. It uses strong matchmaking algorithms, with trusted networks and specific modulated workflow. With its SaaS platform, quality talent is searched in a fraction of seconds. Alike Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, CutShort also offers its AI-driven professional assistant by the name Voila, which makes the entire hiring process far more smooth. Alexa world rank is 2,011 for CUTSHORT

3. METTL

Mettl’s journey started in 2009 when its Co-founders Ketan Kapoor (IIT Roorkee & IIM Calcutta) and Tonmoy Shingal(IIT Kanpur & IIM Bangalore) landed with a common vision of leveraging technology for hiring practices in Indian and global firms. It offers recruitment assessment, programming tests, psychometric tests, aptitude tests, vocational skills assessment, remote proctoring, a pre-built test library of 200-plus tests along with an interview app, deep analytics in performance management, and a certification providing platform. It comes as a cumulative platform of training with hiring. It is blanketed across 100 countries with more than 1800 clients worldwide, and Gurugram-based headquarter. Mettl was acquired by Mercer in 2019. Alexa world rank for Mettl is 6,871

4. Instahyre

Instahyre was initiated in February 2020 by a prodigy pair – Aditya Rajgarhia and Sahil Gupta. They did their higher education from Stanford University and IIT Ropad respectively. It has come with an extremely surprising thought of hiring via AI. It lacks any filter feature, rather has come up with a curated list for the recruiters to hire. This helps the recruiter to attain quality service. It even comes with a secure and relaxing facility of zero spamming emails and genuine jobs. It has gained a lot of goodwill in a limited period of time by big tycoons like Amazon, Walmart, Uber, PayPal, etc. Alexa world rank for instahyre is 14,710

5. AASAAN JOBS

It started in the year 2014 by Dinesh Goel(IIT Bombay alumnus) and was recently acquired by OLX. It is an online marketplace for entry-level and blue-collar jobs,  provides a two-way matchmaking algorithm to eventually meet both ended expectations. Dinesh Goel was inspired by the unregulated Indian recruitment market where the company saw a massive market opportunity. Aasaanjobs considers its USP to be its technology-backed solutions, multilingual website, and ability to reach out and engage with candidates from diverse backgrounds, including those still using feature phones. Alexa world rank for AASAAN JOBS is 39,906

6. ZIGSAW 

Zigsaw Consultancy Services was found in the year 2015 by IIT Guwahati Alumnus Vaibhav Chouhan. Currently operational in Rajasthan, MP & Gujarat ONLY, Zigsaw offers a traditional staffing agency support to companies. For Job-seekers, it offers a Hyperlocal Job-search experience with its social media communities. Having gone through multiple product pivots, Zigsaw aspires to leverage gamification to drive engagement of Job-seekers at zigsaw.in  It is a platform of pre-evaluated profiles that HR’s can leverage to speed up their hiring process. Alexa World Rank of ZIGSAW is 1,09,868

7. BELONG

It was launched in 2014 by BITS Pilani alumnus Vijay Sharma. It is a predictive hiring platform to discover and engage high-impact talent through predictive analytics. At present, Belong works with Amazon, Reliance Jio, Cisco, and ThoughtWorks which are giants in the market. Belong’s Machine Learning algorithms are excellent and helps the businesses unearth and target high-fit talent, engage candidates through personalized interactions, and enhance hiring cycles at scale. Last year, Belong raised Series B funding of $10 million led by Sequoia Capital, and its client portfolio incorporates Ola, InMobi, Myntra, and many other market tycoons. Alexa rank of BELONG is 1,35,283

8. HIRETALE

In the year 2013, Vivek Jain, an IIT Guwahati Alumnus started Hiretale from Jaipur, Rajasthan. It is a technology startup modifying the whole recruitment eco-system by its innovative ideas in connection establishment. It is teamed up by passionate and experienced skills from IIMs/IITs and NITs apart from recruitment specialists who understand the requirements of employers & candidates equally well. Alexa world rank of HIRETALE is 1,52,556

9. JOBSQUARE

Its founder is Ashutosh Valani and Priyank Shah. It aims to be the number one platform of choice that connects recruiters and job seekers in real-time and eliminates the ambiguity associated with the traditional online job seeking scenario, resulting in faster jobs and a simplified recruitment process. Alexa world rank ofJOBSQUARE is 2,85,538 

10. CAJOBPORTAL

Sonia Singhal and her husband Anurag Singhal(IIM Ahmedabad alumni) came up with an idea of running a recruitment startup purely for CAs. This couple is themselves a CA. They were the very first to come up with this idea in 2013. It is interesting to know that it is an all-women team, who works from their respective homes, on a collaborative workspace, enabling real-time monitoring and flawless integration of efforts. It follows a value proposition, in terms of domain expertise, online presence, and service delivery levels. These include the top 50 percent of BSE-30 companies including the appreciations of Unilever, Asian Paints, Goldman Sachs, and HDFC. The portal is also recognized under the ‘Startup India Scheme’ by DIPP.” Alexa world rank of CAJOBPORTAL is 7,05,391

To wrap up, I would like to say that every problem comes with a solution. One just needs a correct way to go through. The same thing applies to find a job, there are plenty of recruitment startups present in India. Just stay tuned and get yourself a dream job.

What do you think about the above list? Do let me know your thoughts in the comments below!!

Performance Appraisals – Everything you need to know about them

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Performance appraisals form a very important part of the Human Resource department since they provide crucial information for the evaluation of the employee’s skill, ability, knowledge, and job performance. The appraisals aren’t just used to eliminate productivity and behavior issues, but to motivate them to contribute a bit more.

An employee performance appraisal system is very important for the organizations to enhance their employee productivity and their outcomes. The performance appraisals are the annual process where the productivity and performance of an employee is evaluated against the predetermined set of goals or tasks.

Meaning of Performance Appraisal

The performance appraisal is a kind of process of evaluating an employee for their duties. The manager assesses and observes their work throughout a year and offers essential guidance, feedback, and further progress during their appraisal duration. It includes holding the formal discussion with an employee recollecting their performance, achievements, and various areas for improvement. The manager identifies various opportunities for an employee to develop professionally. 

Performance Appraisal is also synonyms to performance review, performance evaluation, and employee appraisal. With Performance Appraisals, regular evaluation of an employee’s job performance and overall contribution to the company is recorded. These help in providing the feedback, identify those who are performing their assigned tasks well, offer a formal moment in time to evaluate job performance, distributing raises and bonuses among the employees, and even the employees wish to know their position in the organization. 

Turning to the lexicon, Appraisals gave the meaning – “An assessment of an individual based on its working ethics and then further using that judgment for the monitory purpose, promotions or salary incentives.”

Meaning of Employee Performance

In simple words – “How well the employees are contributing to the welfare of the company’s productivity? ” And this productivity comprises all the concerns for qualitative & quantitative goals along with effectiveness and efficiency. However, it does not necessarily talk about the cost involved with it.

Sometimes performance is graded on the personnel facts of accidents, turnover, absences, and lateness. A good employee is ought to contribute to the company’s upliftment with less risk od the company’s standards.

Employee Performance is one of the most widely used term in any corporate sector, especially when the Human Resource(HR) Department presumes with the  Performance Managers. Human Resource Department plays a prominent role in designing, monitoring, implementing performance appraisals. Before appraisals, they do recruitment, selection, training, domain allocation, and company induction. It means from hiring to firing, everything is picked by them. Moreover, the HR team acts as a mediator between the Functional or Reviewing authorities and the employee. It is the HRM’s responsibility to ensure a smooth implementation of the appraisal process.

Let us dive a little more, to understand the rudimentary of the Appraisals.

Objectives of Performance Appraisal

These objectives are broadly classified into 8 sections –

  • Identification of the company’s aura, by accepting its weaknesses, maintaining its strengths, and channelizing them to future tasks.
  • Wherever needed or demanded by the employees, proving them with relevant informative resources in the work of tutors, study material, a training, workshop, or a professional site visit.
  • This way it will help to categorize the employees and engender vital figures.
  • Simultaneously do remember about the salary incentives, the badge of honors, promotions, or the reward policy.
  • Another way round, if the employee expectation is not fulfilled up to a mark, sit with them, talk over it and understand where they went wrong, what made it wrong, and improvised future steps. Don’t jump on the conclusion to fire them, remember when NOTHING will work out, this would act as the very last option.
  • A company’s decorum and its ongoing client project should not get disturbed because of this ever.
  • Should be flexible in fabricating the HRM policies according to employees’ potential too.
  • At the end of each performance appraisal, keep the research and figures transparent to the individual, to build a 2-way channel, and connect them efficaciously.

Benefits of Performance Appraisal

The main purpose of an employee performance appraisal is double: It helps any organization to decide the productivity and value that employees contribute, it helps the employees to develop their own roles or duties. Well, there would be certainly many of it, that is why it is seen in every firm. Some of them are –

  • A regular and systematic appraisal system aids the HRM to properly identify the performance, areas of talent, and lacking points of the employees.
  • Helps to place the deserving candidates at suitable job profiles.
  • Helps the employees to acknowledge their improving points and get assistance from the seniors regarding the same, it may be a simple mentoring too.
  • The process of promotions and firing becomes easy peasy.
  • This helps in analyzing the HRM efforts paid, the outcome from the team’s end, and generating research for the future programs.
  • Creates healthy competition among the team.
  • Very sophisticated pattern to know the grievances of the company and the team.

Benefits of Performance Appraisal for Organization

Appraisals are the savvy of traits and performance, out of which employee worth and good or bad corners are deduced. Appraisals are essential for making many administrative decisions of selection, training, development, promotion, transfer, salary hikes, individual potential research, regulating, etc. In this meticulous manner, a sharp eye is kept on all the aspects of a firm to record its overall performance.

  1. The employee assessments will make a huge difference in the performance of the organization. They offer insight on how employees are working and allow organizations to:
  2. Address any behavioral issues that can impact departmental productivity.
  3. Know where management will improve their working conditions to improve work quality and productivity.    
  4. Improve decision-making in certain situations that need succession planning, layoffs, and filling roles internally
  5. Support employees in career development and skill
  6. Encourage your employees by contributing more and recognizing their abilities and talents. You can read more about Employee Engagement and its benefits here

Benefit of Performance Appraisal for employee

The performance appraisals or assessment is generally meant to offer the positive outcome for the employees. Insights gained from discussing and assessing the employee’s performance will help:

  1. To recognize the opportunity for bonus or promotion.
  2. Acknowledge the contributions and achievements made by your employee.
  3. Determine specific areas where there is improvement in the skills.
  4. Identify the need for more training and education for career development.
  5. Discussion of the long-term goals.
  6. Motivate your employee and make them participate and invested in their professional development.

Types of Performance Appraisal

With a right performance appraisal process, organizations will be able to improve their employee performance in the organization. Having a good performance review method will make the entire experience rewarding and effective for an employee. Let us have a closer look at the different types of the performance appraisal methods:

  1. Management by Objectives or MBO:

    The management by objective appraisal is quite a modern approach of providing performance reviews to an employee, as it ropes employee in a goal-setting procedure. With the method, managers and their employee may “agree on the specific and obtainable goals with the set deadline.” The management by objective  method makes it simple to define the success & failure.

  2. Self-Evaluation:

    The self-evaluation or assessment needs an employee to judge their performance against the predetermined criteria. The self-evaluation is generally taken intoconsideration during the official performance review and allow for thorough discussion and ensure that employees understand how he or she will be judged. Self-evaluation method can be very subjective to reflect the work performance, since employees can rate themselves very high—or low—but discrepancies between the employee and the employer evaluations will be insightful.   

  3. Behavioral-Based Checklist:

    Behavior-based employee appraisals mainly focus on their ability of carrying out certain specific tasks, and they will be very useful for assessing their performance on the quantitative tasks & for determining who to reward and promote based on the competence in those tasks. It is possible if standards for the appraisal are carefully planned out to start with, the behavior appraisals generally tend to provide the objective way to assess employee performance.

  4. Graphic rating:

    Compared to all given employee performance assessments, this can be the most traditional and simplest one. In a graphic rating method, you will create the columned table organized

    • In a first column, put the variables to be evaluated. Like: punctuality, teamwork, assiduity, creativity, and more.
    • In a next column, put the values of every variable. Like: terrible, regular, bad, good or amazing. You can provide scores from 1 to 5.The primary benefit of this appraisal is that it’s very simple to do. But, it is limited & doesn’t allow for more evaluation. For such reason, graphic rating is normally used in the conjunction with various other methods.

  5. 360-degree performance appraisals:

    This particular method involves review or feedback from many people who contacted with an employee, and keeping biases at bay. This can be other clients, colleagues, customers and even an employee themselves is needed to give their view about their role in a team.

    The 360-degree performance appraisal is said to be one of the top approach as it is all-encompassing and will give a well-rounded and complete view of the employee. It not just offers a precise know-how of the employee’s behavior and attitude, but it will benefit a person by helping with their self-improvement (giving them confidence that can help your organization no end).

  6. Sales Performance Appraisal:

    This method of appraisal is the simplest to conduct, but a bit painful. An employee will be simply judged by his results and his set goals. The salesmen are held to the financial goals quite more than any section of an organization. The manager & salesperson should discuss different ways of achieving their goals and changes that have to be made in order to make them reachable and realistic.

Process of Performance Appraisal

Selecting the right type of employee performance appraisal method will be very critical than ever as it reflects over what you think about your employees or how much do you really care about their morale. When you have found the perfect ideal performance review system for your requirements, the next step will be implementing it in a right way to eliminate any critical performance gaps or address pressing issues, which can impact overall Organisation performance

It is a systematic process to go through –

  • Firstly decide on the performance standards needed.
  • Set up Disciplinary Aspects to be followed by each individual
  • Differentiate between measurable and visible objectives.
  • Then wait for the actual individual outcome.
  • Compare that outcome with the expected or predefined data.
  • Sit with that individual or that team( varies with the firm) and review the areas of improvement and praise their good work.
  • Extract corrective and learning measure from this, and then set bars for the next futuristic iteration.

Where can Performance Appraisal go wrong

  • What if the whole data of the performance appraisals turns out to be incorrect at the end. Although it is a rare chance. But just imagine and feel those chills!
  • Sometimes equal or necessary importance is not given to the measuring factors.
  • Some of the factors are very murky to measure, as the attitude issues, cold fights, or the initiatives.
  • If the managers turn out to be biased by nature or unqualified in analyzing, then that would turn as the pain in the neck.
  • Do make sure that the client projects do not collide with this activity and a smooth functioning of all the other events takes place.

Frequency of Performance Appraisal

See, there is no standard figure of it, it completely pivots on the organizational beliefs, the vastness of employees, and availability of the appraisal drivers. But yes, out of practice it should be periodic and be considered important for moving ahead. For example can be done monthly, annually, quarterly, half-yearly, etc. It is not a healthy idea to shelve this practice, therefore it is advisable to schedule a mid-year appraisal.

In a nutshell, I would like to that Performative Appraisal is the most important part of any organization and amazing assistance to track productivity, aims, and employee engagement. Appraisals are a positive way for a manager to let the employees know how well they are performing the duties that are assigned to them. The HRM should take this task seriously and unbiasedly, even the employees must cooperate with the authority to ease it out.

Things college Management should know – An open letter to a college director

Posted on by Shaivee Kumawat
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Dear Sir,

Hope you and your family are doing good and are safe amidst this COVID19 pandemic situation.

Sir, it’s been long that I have written to you, and this time I am up with an extremely different topic to share with you – COVID19 and its Impact on Students. This COVID19 has created a jinxed pandemic situation worldwide, not only for the human living but also for sectors like manufacturing, export & import, tourism, education, entertainment, healthcare, policing, etc. Amidst all this, we have witnessed a loss of GDP, human lives, mental health, savings, globalization, and employment. According to a survey of CMIE, there has been a tumble of the Indian unemployment rate from 7.22% (January 2020) to  23.52% (April 2020). This is doleful! This disheartening situation hit the worst of the newbies because of their high aspirations and has learned and practiced a lot of entire their graduation life. They dreamed of earning a handsome salary by the end of this year, but see the irony this coronavirus played with them, by not letting their final semester exams getting over too.

Sir this pandemic came out of the blue and still pottering with any effective vaccine. A similar situation might slant back in the coming future, and again, sitting idle would not be a smart solution to it, so it is high time for us to learn and prepare ourselves with some of the imputations –

  1. Difference between Industrial needs and the training provided → We Indians have an age-old practicing of doing, what is been told, that’s absolutely a good sign but should not forget about the generation’s development. As Munshi Permcahnd said – “Be rooted in your ethics and rituals and bloom in the modern world”. There would be surely a significance of old concepts, languages, tools, or methodologies, but these should be used to form the fundamental base to upcoming and emerging utilities. It is a major problem with the Indian institutes that they are are though something different or old technology which is completely different from industrial demands. That is why industry pays/invests a little more after hiring to get an organization ready workforce. If we spare some time to think about this issue and match our training with ongoing market demand, then it would be easy for students to get placed, the company to get a quality pool, and even the college to channelize the entire process.
  2. Problems when securing Internships & Placements → Especially the students of 3-tier, 2 tier or small city face this problem of being deprived by the company’s job offer. This is because of the lacking skillset, non-engagement of college TPO and the company’s recruitment body, and lack of awareness. This can be bridged by providing better skillset training to the students, giving them sessions about soft skills, maintaining healthy relationships with the company, and onboarding industrial trainers and mentors. For the financially backward students, college should provide economic help in traveling, form filling, course fees, etc. Kindly do not just stick to that attendance register and those semester scores, they will be simply resting on that web portals only, and are not going anywhere with the student.
  3. Encouraging Individual Taste → It should not be the case that out of a class of 100 students, 50 will opt JAVA and the rest in Oracle. NO! The entire corporate, software, and professional industry are wide which is craving for many skillsets. Let those required skillsets come from your students. Just keep in mind, where liking meets passion and work, money comes all its way automatically. So keep your students’ ears wide open with an open mind for letting in all kinds of information regarding all the sectors, salary, geographical location, and futuristic scopes. After that it is the synchronization of the student, to get that adequate amount of knowledge get synced with his or her likings and create hos or her career with individual responsibility.  Along with the students, you might get the chance to explore the unseen corners of career building.
  4. Getting the correct exposure for the budding talent → You can not ask a barber to mend your shoes, similarly, you have to get on board with appropriate recruiters or institutes for a particular set of interests of your student. Otherwise, the whole nurte=ured set of talent would go wasted in vain. For example, if you have students interested in Web designing, data science, core language skillset, game designing, ML, AI, AR/VR, etc, then you have to reach the companies who are looking for similar talents and engage them with your students. Even let them know if at remote location job proceeding processes or interviews, assist them all through to reach their final destination. Feeling your high-spirit and positive vibes the student will turn optimistic too.
  5. Channelizing their interests with sound mentoring →  Have a perfect set of mentors, professors, industry experts, and learning source ready from your end, then bring down a meeting with students, learn from them, what they want, what they do have with them, where are they lacking and about their researches. Then brief down the individual skills with appropriate mentor assignment and if needed hire a tutor or purchase the course, from external media. This is a way to stand with the students, guide them, learn from their end too, and making them independent of their choices and responsibilities for the future.

I am very sorry to you Sir, if I unintentionally went too far with this topic, as I wanted my junior batches to learn from current shortcomings and want their future to be secured and glittering. I strongly believe this is the case with most of the students like me, and wanted to give a thought over it, with your wisdom. Hoping to hear from you soon.

Thank You & Best Regards!

Your student

Employee Engagement – Why is it important and how to facilitate

Posted on by Shaivee Kumawat
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Employee engagement is a widely talked upon topic these days. It is gaining huge importance from company managers to working employees.  The degree of employee engagement is directly indicating the work satisfaction attained by its employees. Now the generation is changing and likewise demanding change with the working culture. Apart from a 10-6 job, they are looking for other factors while working like job security, informal connections, company parties, incentives, foreign opportunities, etc.

First, let us understand what is meant by the term or the feeling of Employee Engagement?

The first thing which might come to your mind may be to keep the employees busy in their task and expecting a high performance from their end. And then crediting their accounts with some pretty bucks. But it is more than that. It deals with the emotional connection which an employee feels towards the respective firm. They should have belongingness towards their work and organization. It should leave them with a sense of contentment, excitement, optimism, and gratitude.

So how can an organization, institute, or a startup practice engagement of their employees or a team in a positive manner? Here are some of the tips for the same.

  1. Emotional Aspect

    We are humans and emotions drive through our blood thus, it is the foremost thing to deal with while connecting. We have to give our employees the appropriate respect and love they deserve and acknowledge their ideas and opinions. We need to  decentralize the controlling system for more flexibility, and also evolve the working ethics with time. Earlier, spending time with family, saving money, being on a superior role, or pursuing hobbies gave happiness. But today maintaining a standard lifestyle, being happy in work hours, and having a friend alike work culture has taken some space too in the wishlist. Giving wings to the emotional commitment within the workforce for their organization and its goals is one of the main objectives of employee engagement.

  2. Quality Recruitment

    “Good seeds yield better crops!”. It is strongly believed that if the Human Resource department does good qualitative recruitment according to their company ethics and futuristic goals then it would be very easy to deal with the candidates and even mold them if necessary. So a sharp eye must be kept on the person’s behavior, likings, dislikings, and his or her background. If good cultured candidates are hired then all the engagement policies would go smooth beforehand from their end itself.

  3. Understanding through Observations

    “Actions speak louder than words!”. That is what a senior management team with CEO, COO, or VPS needs to do. Be with the working force and analyze the very granularity of their actions, their working way, their thinking, their discomfort, or even their bonds with their fellow mates. This kind of observation then ought to be shared within the observing team meetings and an individual employee’s feedback should be generated, further a customized approach should be implied to create a better place. However, this is only possible for startups or small firms.

  4. Team Forging Outings

    It is sometimes better to go out with your team, maybe to visit clients, site seeing, or a simple coffee. This would invoke a feeling of friendship and would give some space to additional conversations on market trends, stock prices, country’s GDP, emerging technology, competitors, etc. This often builds an out of the box relationship and is worth practicing. 

  5. Periodic Informal Parties

    “Sunflowers turn to the sun’s direction, no matter wherever they are planted or whomsoever has sown them”. This is because what remains inside as of nature would be there itself, and never depart. Party is the most exciting word and drives everyone crazy, especially if heard at the workplace. Parties are the best practices to grow mutual understandings, establish connections,  knowing about fellow mate’s likes and dislikes, or even just giving a cozy and free space to people. This will surely turn out as the golden egg and would be mentioned to every outsider by your employee while appreciating his or her firm.

  6. The zeal of Upliftment

    Every talent is vital and must be appreciated for being a part of an organization. If a regular motivation is sprinkled on the employees showing their qualities and then driving them to aim and do better, then eventually the whole motivated team would uplift the team’s goal and business as a whole. Give them access to training on the latest tech or tools, invest in their soft skills and listen to their strong working areas, and see the effect by yourself. This flexibility requires knocking down traditional hierarchies and allowing people to work on projects that energize them and where they can contribute.

  7. And the Reward goes to

    Aah! Such a pleasure giving sentence. It is a pure practice to motivate the team by offering them certificates, badges, incentives, promotions, or any other gesture of honor. This way they feel their presence is appreciated and an inner motivation drives through to achieve more.

  8. Being in the Other Shoe

    This is the most effective way to understand and deal with the employees for better engagement. This way you come to know about the firm’s loophole, urgent need, modifications, and even about the ongoing malpractices sometimes. One should not bind the employees in work from the office only, restrict the lunch break till 30 minutes or so, 9-5 pm tight reschedule. NO! No one likes to be herded with a set of hourly restrictions, just keep them free and focus on the result and working status.

Now the question comes, that what would these practices be yielding?

This should benefit in the following ways :

  • Decrease in absenteeism
  • Healthy working space
  • Rise in revenue
  • Increased productivity
  • Fruitful relationships
  • Higher retention
  • Customer satisfaction

Here is a list of Top 10 Employee Engagement Activities you can organize for your team

On consolidating I would like to say that building a better place is always the responsibility of each person present there. And there is no doubt that it is a tedious job, but not impossible Right? So, employers need to understand the drivers of employee engagement and apply them accordingly. Because having an engaged workforce is crucial for ensuring good growth and better stability.

How to Hire Top Talent in Smaller Cities

Posted on by Shaivee Kumawat
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A wise man has said “Great oaks fell from small acorns! ”, which meant most of the great human or idealistic superheroes have small beginnings and eventually augment by their kindness and wisdom. That is the reason to rethink if someone believes or says that talent is something only available in metropolitan or giant cities. Then NO! My dear, you are on the wrong path, talent is widespread and omnipresent. To hunt a talent, one needs a goldsmith’s eye and a true zeal while searching. Small city people often complain that their voice is left unheard, they do not get an appropriate amount of mentoring and motivation to uplift their skills, or there is no proper platform to outcast their talent or even. This creates a major area of fret for the talent seekers, society, or even the nation as a whole to search solutions for it. Recruiting employees or skill-sets that a business needs can be taxing, however, if someone lives in a small town or probably a  rural location, attracting talent can be even more cumbersome.

Roles based in larger cities are liable to attract more candidates because of its larger population, high salaries, high living standards costs more workforce, and even because of more possible areas to explore, experiment, and earn. Take the examples of Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata, etc. One might even realize that, apart from the city’s name, that place has built its own reputation by inclining towards a specific industry. For example, while imagining a ‘film city’ the person may land to Mumbai, or on spelling ‘tech-hub’ one might hear Hyderabad. Okay! Leaving these fine talks behind let’s think about the steps to take to improve the recruitment process in a less populated area –

  1.   It’s a two-way profit → It is often mistakenly taken for granted that finding a job is the necessity of the job finder and they should feel serious and spend extra efforts on it. But this is not the truth, finding a job and giving a job is both the party’s necessities and no one should take this for granted. Instead, the company should provide its employees with as many positive utilities as possible to retain them, keep them motivated, and also give them perks to work.
  2. Take advantage of regional networks and local job boards → It’s very important to make sure that you’re using the right mix of the online job portals and offline skill availability when advertising the vacancies. While sharing your role on social media, try to promote it within local groups on Facebook, WhatsApp, and LinkedIn or use Twitter and Instagram hashtags to make it more searchable. Even you may ask your key contacts of the specific local areas to retweet your vacancies to raise awareness.
  3. Know the candidate’s professional aspirations → Mostly it is seen that the people from small cities lack professional expertise, hence it is important to edify them with those skills. Probe the unique skill set of a person and try to match them it with a vacant job role this way it helps in making employer and the employee have a mutually beneficial relationship.
  4. Keep it in the family → “Charity begins from the home!”, that is why is it said to support the person, family and society as a whole. It is important for a candidate to have spine alike support from valued family members and having their commitment to social welfare.
  5. Know where to look → If someone is knowing the geographical area and the employment market, then automatically the potential candidates would be known. It is very important for a city to have schools, colleges, or training centers or institutes in working condition, so that it may act as a candidate pool while recruiting.

Also, a mix of community or culture gives birth to numerous perspectives, ideas, and skillsets.

  1. Develop your referrals scheme →  Referral programs act as a great idea for many businesses and are even vital for companies based in smaller towns who are struggling to attract talent with their recruitment advertising campaigns. In fact, out of research it was found that 48% of the employee referral programs were the top source of quality hire, according to LinkedIn’s Global Recruiting Trends 2017 report. An attractive referrals scheme will incentivize your employees to recommend contacts in their local network in exchange for a reward. Be generous and spendthrift with your reward, after all making a hire through referral eventually saves thousands of pounds.
  2. Remote working → If someone from a small area with a good and wanted kind of skill set is struggling with a change in geography by food and water change, living standard, or any other health-related issue, then it’s worth considering remote working. There are plenty of outlying roles available in this era, particularly in the IT sector. Carefully reconsider your decision on providing distant jobs, as it even comes with some unforeseen exigents.
  3. Focus on improving your brand →  Meliorating both the corporate brand and employer brand seriously, helps in coax talent from afar. For example, the pre-joining training of Infy is well known worldwide, the working culture of Tatas is very prestigious, etc develops a strong brand and a reputation as a good employer, and makes people think of their brands in their dream jobs.
  4. Sell your area to people looking to relocate → Even after considering all the above tricks, someone still fails to attract candidates locally, it’s worth looking further afield and pitching the role as a relocation opportunity. There will always be people who want to escape the rat race and move somewhere a bit more remote and away from the brisk life of the city. Think about the lifestyle and opportunity that candidates could have and sell that. If someone is ready to bear the relocation costs, even this suggestion would sound better.

After going through all the above points and understanding them to the depth I don’t think now this small area acquisition would create a lot of sigh to our recruiters.

Difference between CV, Resume and Biodata

Posted on by Shaivee Kumawat
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Very often when a person enters a professional career from academic life, there is a real basic need of having a resume or a CV or a biodata with him/her. And not only this, this piece of paper requires an ample amount of updations and verifications at various instances of time.

Wait! What!? Was there something above which got repeated thrice?

Was that RESUME, CV, and  BIODATA?

Right! But all these three words refer to the same piece of document. Isn’t it?

Well here comes a twist to your knowledge – these three words may partially refer to the same piece of a document but it is not the very same thing as a whole.

So, let me first introduce you all to these terminologies, before going further.

Biodata

The term Biodata stands for Biographical Data. It was a term that had a key significance in India before most of us here were even born. Mostly before the 90s when any person wished to apply for a job they called job profile as Biodata. Mostly it covered non-professional details of a person like one’s height, weight, hobbies, religion, caste, complexion, and at the end partially covered his/her’s educational qualifications.

With growing generations, this term is losing its presence and has taken some new words instead. Wait! Let me clear you – lost presence just by its term, but has evolved very much by its content.

Nowadays this term might be used in case of typical Indian families, who are searching for a perfect match for their child( in short while fixing a girl and a boy by arranging marriages).

The second instance which clicks my mind is when a person applies for a job post in the government sector.

Resume

This term has been derived from a French word meaning ‘summary’, and is pronounced as “re-su-mae”.

It is a very precise form of a job profile, which contains details like academics, skillset, and past record of employment(if any). It does not include sections of hobbies, father’s name, religion, etc.

As the resume is kept quite brief and saturated with professional information, so, this is best suited while searching for a Job online

CV

It stands for Curriculum Vitae, which has taken its meaning from Latin terminology meaning ‘one’s entire course of life’. It contains each and every achievement of one’s life from co-curricular to professional. In this, the length is not a matter of concern and each important thing(varies from person and job post) is mentioned and accordingly highlighted. In 21st century we use this term quite often, and this term has marked its global presence(especially in continents like Europe, Africa, and Australia )

I hope I am clear with the terminologies of these three terms. Now let me summaries with some more details of these terms in a tabular format.

Difference between CV, Resume and Biodata

PROPERTIES WHILE

COMPARING

  BIODATA RESUME CV
MEANING Used in early eras which covered the personal details of a person Precise and saturated job profile of a person A detailed description of the person along with one’s job profile one has accomplished
LENGTH Not more than 1 page Maximum 2 pages May vary(generally 4-5 pages)
KEY FOCUS Personal information Educational details and past job details Detailed personal, co-curricular, educational and past job profile handling information
WHEN TO USE Applying for marriage proposals or govt. posts Job seeking profiles or a fresh job Internship, fellowship, higher job posts
DOCUMENT TYPE Concise Concise Comprehensive
EDUCATIONAL DETAILS At the bottom In between At the top
ORDERED CHRONOLOGY Not needed Not needed Needed
STRUCTURE Very simple and personal detail-oriented Sticking to educational details while keeping it brief too Mentioning the complete history of a person(personal, educational, qualitative and job-skill details)
REFERENCE May vary Not included included

I hope now it is clear for you that what is the difference between cv, resume and biodata.

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