My VISION

VISION, when it is of the people who manage HR has the potential of transgressing the known boundaries of Management objectivity & stepping into the realm of Rationale humanity towards members of the organization.

What makes the process of vision formation for HR more complicated is the fact that while managing people is definitely an art in itself, it is always guided by considerations of achieving a pre-set financial matrix, which is more often than not ‘cold blooded science’

Attempts made at achieving a ‘marriage of convenience’ where the above factors complement each other often fail when the marriage becomes uncomfortable due to the conveniences becoming a disturbance in the attainment of either of the objectives.

To be able to succeed in either of the above objectives, one has to have the conviction to really believe in either the science or the art & use the other to supplement it. For HR functionaries who would like to have along term view of the business, especially in organizations where the human intellect is the prime tangible asset, it is advisable to found the vision on the holistic principle of Human empowerment supplemented by the monitoring mechanisms of PMS, designed to act on behalf of the requirements of Management objectivity.

Rabindranath Tagore had this vision of our country…..


Where the mind is without fear

And the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

By narrow domestic walls;

Where the words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee

Into ever-widening thought and action,

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.


An innate metaphor it may be but if we just replace the word ‘country’ with the word ‘organization’ it becomes a manifestation of my vision for my department.

I would like to work towards this vision by undertaking following interventions:

• An environment should be created where the employees, in most cases are able to work without any fear. Achievement of targets should come from motivation & not from the fear of loosing one’s job or position, so far as possible. The reason being ‘fear’ can only be used as a short term tool at best, its use over a sustained period will lead to high attrition.

• Fearless minds breed creativity, fearful ones breed manipulation, the significance of the first over the second is to clear to emphasize.
• The working environment should be such that at all times the members of the organization must have a high sense of self respect as employees of the company in their respective positions.

• Employees must be able to respect the company & its management by choice, not compulsion. (I use the words ‘be able to’ because the management’s actions will predominantly dictate this).

• In times of volatility & recession, people prefer being stable & gaining knowledge rather than gaining a little more money by being unstable. Training & Retraining are vital means of increasing employee morale & curbing attrition.

• Extensive training creates a steady pool of transferable skills which can be used for multitasking, if needed. A culture of learning needs to be created in all organizations.

• Training does not always come with high economic costs & vague break evens. There are many training methodologies which give guaranteed results without additional costs.

• The organizational fabric starts to decay when individuals/groups of employees start seeing themselves as ‘us’ & the others as ‘them’

• Compartmentalization of the organization into different functional entities is not always conducive in the long term. An approach of creating teams based on ‘process life cycles’ is more apt for improved interpersonal coherence. This type of team work is what is necessary in most organizations, but missing.

• The systems & processes in an organization must be refined to permit a seamless flow of operations without considerable bottlenecks. Mere human effort & motivation is not enough to acieve high standards of efficiency. HR should take a proactive consultative approach in this regard.

• Every department & every employee must have its own vision (both short term & long term) & achievable objectives clearly earmarked. Setting the target is very essential for achieving it.

• Every employee has a family to look after. If they are not able to devote enough time to their families, the stress would eventually build up & show its effect in some form or the other. It needs to be remembered that a normal human being has limitations on his capacity to concentrate & work effectively. Mere physical presence for long hours may not lead to efficient work. HR must take steps to motivate employees to work smart, rather than plain hard work, maintaining there work-life balance as well.

• Very often dynamic managements lack in documentation, which leads to a problem in succession planning & handling emergencies without them. The credo of HR should be “In GOD we trust, for everything else we have documents”. Consequently there must be a ‘documented process’ for everything. The day this happens, the HR cost of the organization goes down drastically & so does the training cost.

• Every organization spends considerable money in coming up with its accounting balance sheet & does regular account audits. However hardly anybody subjects their process/operational departments to regular PROCESS audits. This is where the chances of making or breaking the organization exist in plenty. An accounts audit is merely a result of the actions in the processes. Management must make it mandatory for every department/function to get itself audited by an impartial entity.

• Employees must be encouraged to think ‘out of the box’ and their suggestions must be really looked into. 95 % of all new ideas seem ridiculous, but it’s the remaining 5 % which change the world. HR must create an atmosphere where they & the other decision makers are willing to be patient & wait for these 5 % while politely discarding the 95%.

• Employee engagement options need not be restricted to only the fashionable & costly ones. It’s the experience & the memory of these engagements which counts. HR must come up with more innovative interventions.

The above list, though not exhaustive, cavers a fairly broad spectrum of activities HR needs to undertake. HR being an art, perfection can never be said to be achieved. However meeting the above challenges in fairly respectable measure itself can make quite a huge difference to organizational fortunes.

One man's food is another man's poison

Volatile markets & the mass hysteria created by the onset of Swine flu captured the headlines for most of the last month. No sooner than the process of economic recovery was seen gaining momentum, we were hit by a bolt from the blue, literally. The failure of monsoons has the potential of derailing the Indian economy as the rural sector continues to occupy a position of preeminent importance even in the current times. Earlier the agrarian output used to be the key contributor to the national GDP, now the rural & semi urban folks constitute a major chunk of our great ‘middle class’ whose consumption patterns decide the course of the many balance sheets. Keep alive the hope for a revival of the monsoon, in the absence of which the Broking industry may as well take a hit. Let us pray for our collective ‘Fortunes’.

The Swine Flu pandemic had been the other issue that ignited our worst fears causing panic amongst the masses & the classes alike. One man’s food is another man’s poison & vice versa too. So watch out for the Pharma stocks. While some players have already made a killing, many others are waiting to do so. In so far as we are concerned, better to get used to this new disease. Its going to be here for quite a while, so gear up all the preventive Do’s & Don’ts & most important stop panicking & think rationally.

Request more of you to voice your views, opinions & whatever on these themes. Don't worry about your views being good or bad or about the language not being good enough, the important thing is to have an opinion & the courage to express it, which we all need to develop.

The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude

How can it be so? Attitude is a reflection of the conscience on the state of mind, so intangible in nature! What on earth could make it supersede the host of material & social factors in driving human destiny? Answers may seem far fetched, but not remote.

While the socio-economic factors affect an individual's fortunes, 'attitude' affects the individual himself, imbibing the whole persona with the thought process that formed it. By nature attitude is meant to be momentary, but worn consistently over long periods of time becomes a Habit of the mind. This mental habit precedes all human action thus deciding its course. As is common knowledge, the 'course taken' in often the most important part of the 'journey of life'. Thus, more often than not, it will be 'attitude' which will seal the fate of our state of being.

If something so frail can be as important, it pays to keep it positive. Changing one's attitude towards life undisputedly gives the discontented, the best returns on investments that can possibly be made.