Cross-training: Today’s answer to getting the most out of your workforce       

As companies try to stay lean and mean, many are turning to formal cross-training programs to make sure they’re getting the most out of their staffs. Here are some ideas on how to get started.

Some workers are going to be gung ho about learning a new set of skills and making themselves more valuable to your company.
Sadly, not all of them are going to see it that way. Some will drag their feet and complain about taking on extra work, while others might confuse the quest for staff flexibility with a red flag about layoffs.
The steps taken to prepare for cross-training go a long way toward making sure your plan’s a success.
Here are some strategies employers can use to start laying the groundwork for a successful cross-training program:

Ease into it

When it comes to cross-training employees, the best bet is to take it one step at a time.
Jumping into a mass training initiative can cause a lot of unforeseen snags — not the least of which is a confused and intimidated group of workers.
A better strategy is to move into the program gradually, increasing the number of employees involved as the workforce gets more comfortable with the new procedures.

Put it in a new light    

ANAMIKA SINGH  

PGDM3SEM  

20/11/2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sensex erases early gains from RBI liquidity steps, up 89 pts

PTI  Mumbai, October 08, 2013

First Published: 09:57 IST(8/10/2013) | Last Updated: 17:17 IST(8/10/2013
The benchmark Sensex partially erased initial gains from the RBI's surprise reduction of a bank lending rate and climbed 89 points on Tuesday to end at the highest level in more than two weeks.

Brokers said sentiment initially turned buoyant after the Reserve Bank of India yesterday cut the marginal standing facility (MSF) rate, at which it lends emergency funds to banks, by 50 basis points to 9 per cent ahead of the festive season with the aim of improving liquidity and boosting economic activities.
The index regained the 20,000 level but failed to hold on to the gains. Realty, capital goods and FMCG sector stocks gained, while metal and IT stocks declined.
ITC and ICICI Bank boosted the Sensex, while TCS and HDFC dragged it lower. The major gainers on the index included Tata Power and Bharti Airtel.
The 30-share Sensex resumed above the 20K-level and touched an intra-day high of 20,150.27, before succumbing to profit-booking to settle at 19,983.61, a rise of 88.51 points or 0.44 per cent.
This is the highest closing level for the index since September 20, when it ended at 20,263.71.
"While the markets had a flying start on back of MSF cut by RBI, the gains got trimmed during the day. The market movement has actually turned sideways ahead of result season," said Milan Bavishi, Head Research at Inventure Growth and Securities.
The 50-share CNX Nifty on the National Stock Exchange rose 22.25 points, or 0.38 per cent, to 5,928.40. The SX40 index on the MCX Stock Exchange gained 48.17 points to end at 11,904.62.
The RBI had taken steps in mid July, including raising the MSF rate to 10.25 per cent, to tighten liquidity in an attempt to curb volatility in the rupee-dollar exchange rate.
nitesh kumar
pgdm 1st

Managers hold key to engagement: Six steps to help them succeed       

The good news: American workers are two-and-a-half times more likely to be actively engaged in their jobs than their counterparts around the globe. The not-so-good part: only three of 10 U.S. workers are feeling the love.  
Those numbers are straight out of Gallup’s recent State of the Global Workplace: Employee Engagement Insights for Business Leaders Worldwide: 30% of American workers feel they’re engaged in their jobs. That number is only 13% worldwide.
What’s worse, actively disengaged workers — those folks who actually can submarine an organization — outnumber engaged ones by a ratio of nearly 2-1 on a worldwide scale. Here, too, the U.S. does better. But we’re still looking at almost one in five (18%) employees who admit they’re just not into their companies.
And then there are the 52% of American employees who say while they’re not actively disengaged, they’re not engaged, either.  \
Some other tidbits from the Gallup report:
East Asia has the lowest proportion of engaged employees in the world, at 6%, which is less than half of the global mean of 13%. The regional finding is driven predominantly by results from China, where 6% of employees are engaged in their jobs — one of the lowest figures worldwide.
In Australia and New Zealand, 24% of employees are engaged, while 60% are not engaged and 16% are actively disengaged. The resulting ratio of engaged to actively disengaged employees — 1.5-to-1 — is one of the highest among all global regions and similar to results from the U.S. and Canada (1.6-to-1).
Gallup found the highest levels of active disengagement in the world in the Middle     


ANAMIKA SINGH  
PGDM 3SEM  
12/10/2013

BANGALORE: In November 2005, former IPS officer DK Panda became well-known throughout India as the cop with a cross-dressing problem. Panda, then inspector-general of police, Lucknow, claimed he saw himself as Krishna's consort, Radha, and started dressing to reflect this belief. He went to work dressed in saris, vermilion in his hair and make-up, in clear breach of the police dress code and service rules. Panda, who famously labeled himself the 'Doosri Radha', was hauled up by the director-general of police, and subsequently quit the service to continue his chosen way of life.

While nothing quite as dramatic has taken place in Karnataka, the recent flip-flop by the state government on imposing dress codes on its employees by the department of personnel and administrative reforms has put the spotlight on whether and how dress codes impact productivity. Surprisingly, in these more liberal times, there is no unanimous denouncement of dress codes.

"The ayatollahs of formal dressing and the ayatollahs of informality are both wrong," says Manish Sabharwal, chairman, TeamLease Services. "How you dress must depend on what industry you are in, what role you serve, your position in the hierarchy of the organization... one size does not fit all," says Sabharwal. He points out that even in Silicon Valley, where the desire to not be seen as one of the 'suits' (a pejorative term for lawyers, HR managers and the like) led to an extreme informality of dress, there has been a pulling back in recent years. More people there are now adopting a middle-ground by teaming well-tailored jackets with T-shirts and blazers without ties. Personally, Sabharwal admits that dressing up in a sharp suit makes him feel more "decisive and confident."

"I don't believe there is a link between dress codes and productivity, but I do believe there is a direct correlation between employees' comfort and their productivity," says Mukund Mohan, director, Microsoft Ventures India. "Having a standard dress code is counter-productive, whether the rules bend towards the formal or the informal. It's a tricky thing - someone could feel most 'comfortable' and positive in a suit," says Mohan, a Silicon Valley-returnee, who feels most comfortable in T-shirts teamed with casual trousers, and has been dressing that way since the late '90s. It has never come in the way of his productivity or of people's perception of him as an efficient manager, he says.

A July 2012 study by researchers at Northwestern University in the US introduced the term "enclothed cognition" to describe the systematic influence that clothes have on the wearer's psychological processes. The study found that dressing in a certain way, such as in a doctor's lab coat, improved subjects' performance on parameters related to certain skills. Sangeeth Varghese, founder and chairman of LeadCap Trust, one of the world's largest youth leadership organizations, believes in "broad advisories" when it comes to workplace attire. Varghese, who has recently written to the Karnataka department of personnel and administrative reforms in support of the decision, quotes several studies that indicate smart and slightly formal attire improve productivity.

Certain businesses are very clear about where they stand on dress codes. "Some companies have rules and regulations and dress codes. Here, the only dress code is 'wear something'," writes Vivaik Bharadwaj, policy & quality operations director, Google India, on the company's website.

Quote hanger

* Imposing uniforms on government employees in no way improves the quality of service. Instead of imposing dress codes, it is necessary to change their attitude towards the public with whom they interact regularly. The employees should make the public feel confident that their grievances are being attended to. For this, the employees should look and appear neat and smart, but that's about it.

I M Vittala Murthy | former bureaucrat

* When you're in a responsible position and are addressing stakeholders, such as in a government job, it's important to project efficiency in order to be taken seriously. I wrote to the secretary of the department, Shalini Rajneesh, because I believe in the Sakaala campaign, which aims to improve delivery of government service, and I think a smart dress code is a part of that delivery.

Sangeeth Varghese | founder, LeadCap Trust

* While I do not support dress codes for college students because I feel that's the time for them to figure out their tastes and preferences without restrictions, I do believe that at the workplace, dress codes or at least a certain imposed uniformity works. It can enhance workplace unity and a certain similarity of dressing often does away with petty and negative comparisons. It can also, under certain circumstances, save time and make life easier for employe

raj kishore sharma 

pgdm 1st sem

 

XpertHR, the UK's leading online HR resource, has relaunched with a new-look site, incorporating numerous customer-led improvements.

XpertHR, the UK's leading online HR resource, has relaunched with a new-look site, incorporating numerous customer-led improvements.                         

The website, which provides employment law advice, good practice and benchmarking information for HR professionals, has undergone an extensive redesign to enable customers to access its up-to-date HR information more easily.
XpertHR subscribers have been involved in the redesign throughout and have helped carry out extensive testing of a beta version of the site in recent months.
David Shepherd, content and platform director at XpertHR, said: "We are very grateful to our customers for giving us so much help in creating an HR resource that exactly meets their needs.
"Their input at every stage has helped us completely re-imagine XpertHR to meet today's challenges and make the most of the latest technology, while remaining true to the values of accuracy, authority, ease of use and comprehensiveness they have always associated with XpertHR."
The addition of "Tasks" means that subscribers can now access all the XpertHR guidance and model documents they need to accomplish hundreds of HR tasks, which customers have helped to define. Whether they need to "respond to an employee's formal notification of her pregnancy", "conduct an annual pay review" or "extend an employee's probationary period", all the guidance is now accessible in one place.
Areas that existing users are familiar with - including the employment law manual, "how to" and policies and documents - can now be found under "Tools" in the new XpertHR site. New tools have been added, including "audio and video", "case studies" and "survey analysis".
XpertHR has also expanded and improved its topics system. After selecting a top-level topic, such as "pay and benefits", you can drill down through lower-level topics, such as "pay levels and awards" then "national minimum wage", viewing all the latest resources for each topic and subtopic.
The new-look site also includes an enhanced search function, which allows users to filter results and access what they are looking for quickly.   
ANAMIKA SINGH   
PGDM 3 ESEM   
7/10/2013

Office relocations double in first half of 2013: Study:

NEW DELHI: Several businesses, both Indian and foreign, are using the slowdown in the office real estate market to relocate their offices to locations where all their businesses can come under one roof and that too at lower rentals.

According to a Cushman & Wakefield study, office relocations and consolidation of space have more than doubled in the first half of 2013 against last year and companies have managed to reduce their rents substantially. 

"Many companies are opting for relocation and consolidation of office spaces which brings in economies of scale and better efficiency. They could also reduce their rentals by 25-50%," says Sanjay Dutt, executive managing director of South Asia at real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield.

Real estate firm SARE, for instance, recently leased a new office building in Gurgaon where it now has 26,000 sq ft of usable area compared with 15,000 sq ft that it was using in two different offices that were about 20 kilometres apart - one in Delhi's Nehru Place area, and the other in Gurgaon.
 

 "We have been able to reduce our per sq ft rental cost by around 50% and now it takes care of our growth for the next 3-4 years," says Vineet Relia, chief operating officer at SARE. They have also got better work spaces as it is a new building unlike the Nehru Place building, which is old. Relia says since leasing is generally slow at the moment, good spaces were available at comparatively lower rentals.

Earlier this week, multinational HR firm Aon Hewitt signed up a large lease deal with Unitech for 800,000 sq ft of space at its Infospace Tikri SEZ in Gurgaon where it will consolidate four of its offices in Gurgaon into this one by early next year, bringing in substantial cost savings.

According to Cushman & Wakefield data, Inmobi leased 111,000 sq ft of office space in Bangalore's ORR moving from Domlur. In Mumbai, Johnson & Johnson took up 150,000 sq ft in Andheri East moving from more expensive Worli. In the NCR, Oriflame took up 40,000 sq ft, moving from Connaught Place to Jasola.

"Market rentals are low today but are on their way up," says Vivek Dahiya, chief executive officer of GenReal Property Advisers, a property consulting firm, pointing out that this is a good time for companies to consolidate their office space. "Companies today are willing to go a little farther away to achieve cost benefits," he says.

The office market in India has matured considerably over the past 15 years since the boom began. In these years, though, geographical dynamics have changed quite a bit. In many areas like the NCR and in Mumbai, city centres have moved over the years.

In the NCR, Connaught Place is no longer the prime central business district that it was a decade back with action shifting to other locations like Gurgaon and Noida. 

Companies look to hire experienced talent:

Cutting back on hiring entry- and junior-level staff, Indian companies are increasingly looking to hire experienced professionals who would hit the ground running from day one, says a report by a recruitment firm shared exclusively with TOI. Overall, it found an improvement in business sentiment, predicting that net business outlook will improve by 3% in the next six months.

The half-yearly report forecasting hiring trends from October 2013 to March 2014 said engineering as a function remains in demand, especially for the talent coming from tier II and tier III cities like Allahabad, Bareilly, Ludhiana, Ranchi and Warangal. Businesses which are sensitive to the political-economic fallout of the impending general elections are the ones that are most likely to go slow on hiring. The bright spots on the jobs chart are the consumer goods, retail, pharma and healthcare sectors, which are expected to register increased hiring over the next six months.

 "The FMCG industry is not witnessing any slowdown in hiring. Despite the tough macro-economic conditions, we are among the few sectors that have been reporting good growth quarter-on-quarter. So, hiring continues at our organization. As we expand our rural footprint, we are constantly adding numbers in the rural markets," said HR V Krishnan, executive VP at Dabur. The maker of Vatika hair oil and Real juices added around 1,000 employees for its rural expansion over the past one year.

Gauri Kesarwani.

PGDM 1st-sem

27th-sep-2013.

Does workplace dress code improve productivity?

BANGALORE: In November 2005, former IPS officer DK Panda became well-known throughout India as the cop with a cross-dressing problem. Panda, then inspector-general of police, Lucknow, claimed he saw himself as Krishna's consort, Radha, and started dressing to reflect this belief. He went to work dressed in saris, vermilion in his hair and make-up, in clear breach of the police dress code and service rules. Panda, who famously labeled himself the 'Doosri Radha', was hauled up by the director-general of police, and subsequently quit the service to continue his chosen way of life.

While nothing quite as dramatic has taken place in Karnataka, the recent flip-flop by the state government on imposing dress codes on its employees by the department of personnel and administrative reforms has put the spotlight on whether and how dress codes impact productivity. Surprisingly, in these more liberal times, there is no unanimous denouncement of dress codes.

"The ayatollahs of formal dressing and the ayatollahs of informality are both wrong," says Manish Sabharwal, chairman, TeamLease Services. "How you dress must depend on what industry you are in, what role you serve, your position in the hierarchy of the organization... one size does not fit all," says Sabharwal. He points out that even in Silicon Valley, where the desire to not be seen as one of the 'suits' (a pejorative term for lawyers, HR managers and the like) led to an extreme informality of dress, there has been a pulling back in recent years. More people there are now adopting a middle-ground by teaming well-tailored jackets with T-shirts and blazers without ties. Personally, Sabharwal admits that dressing up in a sharp suit makes him feel more "decisive and confident."

"I don't believe there is a link between dress codes and productivity, but I do believe there is a direct correlation between employees' comfort and their productivity," says Mukund Mohan, director, Microsoft Ventures India. "Having a standard dress code is counter-productive, whether the rules bend towards the formal or the informal. It's a tricky thing - someone could feel most 'comfortable' and positive in a suit," says Mohan, a Silicon Valley-returnee, who feels most comfortable in T-shirts teamed with casual trousers, and has been dressing that way since the late '90s. It has never come in the way of his productivity or of people's perception of him as an efficient manager, he says.

A July 2012 study by researchers at Northwestern University in the US introduced the term "enclothed cognition" to describe the systematic influence that clothes have on the wearer's psychological processes. The study found that dressing in a certain way, such as in a doctor's lab coat, improved subjects' performance on parameters related to certain skills. Sangeeth Varghese, founder and chairman of LeadCap Trust, one of the world's largest youth leadership organizations, believes in "broad advisories" when it comes to workplace attire. Varghese, who has recently written to the Karnataka department of personnel and administrative reforms in support of the decision, quotes several studies that indicate smart and slightly formal attire improve productivity.

Certain businesses are very clear about where they stand on dress codes. "Some companies have rules and regulations and dress codes. Here, the only dress code is 'wear something'," writes Vivaik Bharadwaj, policy & quality operations director, Google India, on the company's website.

Quote hanger

* Imposing uniforms on government employees in no way improves the quality of service. Instead of imposing dress codes, it is necessary to change their attitude towards the public with whom they interact regularly. The employees should make the public feel confident that their grievances are being attended to. For this, the employees should look and appear neat and smart, but that's about it.

I M Vittala Murthy | former bureaucrat

* When you're in a responsible position and are addressing stakeholders, such as in a government job, it's important to project efficiency in order to be taken seriously. I wrote to the secretary of the department, Shalini Rajneesh, because I believe in the Sakaala campaign, which aims to improve delivery of government service, and I think a smart dress code is a part of that delivery.

Sangeeth Varghese | founder, LeadCap Trust

* While I do not support dress codes for college students because I feel that's the time for them to figure out their tastes and preferences without restrictions, I do believe that at the workplace, dress codes or at least a certain imposed uniformity works. It can enhance workplace unity and a certain similarity of dressing often does away with petty and negative comparisons. It can also, under certain circumstances, save time and make life easier for employe

neelupgdm3rd