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COVER
STORY
Managing
Diversity
-- Mendemu Showry
As the wave of globalization sweeps across organizations,
there is a convergence of workforce from diverse countries,
cultures, values, styles, etc. Such convergence of distinctly
different people presents tremendous opportunities as well
as challenges to the HR people. Organizations can derive unassailable
lead in the marketplace when they have in place effective
Human Resource Management practices and diversity initiative
that accepts differences, values equality and creates preferred
places to work. The article explains the importance of diversity,
ways of managing it and challenges therein.
© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved
COVER
STORY
Workforce
Diversity
-- Umanath
Diversity
describes the spectrum of human similarities and differences.
"As defined by the workplace diversity network, it refers
to the composition of people associated with the organization,
configures opportunity, interaction, communication, information
and decision making to utilize the potential of diversity."
As we deal with various countries and people, there is a big
difference between accepting employee diversity and embracing
it. To manage workforce diversity one has to be responsive
to age, gender, race, ethnicity, religious, socio-economic
and other non-tangible attributes of the person in the organizational
setting.
© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved
ORGANIZATIONAL
CULTURE
Leaders
and Followers in an Ethical Culture
-- Melody Avery Cazort and Bramwell Osula
This
article argues that leaders can create better organizations
by initiating a mutually shared ethical culture with their
followers or employees. By sharing a joint ethical framework
and generating positive relationships, bonding and cohesion
develop which promote organizational culture. While organizations
scramble for ways to optimize success, they consistently disregard
or denigrate the value of their human capital and the gains
to be made from building trust and positive values. In other
words, companies often forget what makes success or failure:
its people. As a result, organizational problems arise from
widespread unethical workforces. Developing a collective ethical
culture is one long-term solution to many of the problems
witnessed by organizations. In this article, a business tool
is introduced, that suggests ways in which a communal culture
might be created. The solutions offered here aim at bringing
people together to develop a preferred culture that is appropriate
to their organizational needs.
© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved
PERFORMANCE
MANAGEMENT
Creating
High Performance Work Systems
-- Sivaram Tekuru
High performance work systems (HPWS) are imperative in
this competitive world. Organizations must focus in the context
of real life and real time challenges. HPWS is a combination
of various functions of HR that focuses on the performance
of the employee through increased knowledge, skills and commitment
towards the organization. The proposed changes should be driven
from the top and fueled thoughout an organization. According
to Keith Denton, HPWS are those organizations that employ
a fundamentally different approach to managing than the traditional
piece-meal approach. Components like people, technology or
even the managers treated independently work bureaucratically
and when integrated make the system work effectively and result
in less attrition, more productivity and profits to organizations.
© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved
EFFECTIVE
LEADERSHIP
Emotional
Intelligence : Thrust for Successful Leadership
-- Neha Amar
Emotions
are very critical and play an active and decisive role in
everyone's daily life-both personal and professional. Human
resource can be considered as one of the most dynamic and
unique resource bases of any organization as organizations
are becoming more people-centric in this globalized world.
Emotional intelligence is all about understanding and exploiting
one's own and others' emotions for the personal and professional
benefit. Emotionally intelligent workforce can be thought
of as core competence of an organization as it is linked with
effective leadership and organizational performance.
© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved
ORGANIZATIONAL
BEHAVIOR
Handling
Difficult People
-- Niharika Joshi (Bhatt)
The
organization's social environment, which consists of different
types of people, may have a lot of effect on the performance
of an individual. The environment may sometimes consist of
people who seem to be unnecessarily nagging you and making
things difficult for you for obvious or non-obvious reasons.
If not handled well, these people may make you feel demotivated.
This article tries to throw light on the causes and management
of difficult behavior.
© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved
BUSINESS
STRATEGY
Strategic
Compensation Management : Concept and Practices
-- Shubhasheesh Bhattacharya
Earlier, many business organizations did not find the
need for spending high level of effort, energy and time on
the `Strategy' part of compensation management, as they did
in areas like selling and marketing of products and services.
One major reason for this is that the results and gains of
strategic compensation management are difficult to measure
and are intangible. Whereas, the results of the efforts in
areas like selling and marketing are comparatively easy to
measure. In addition to this, earlier, the economy was manufacturing-based
while today's economy is knowledge-based, where manpower is
the most important resource. So, with the increasing demand
for talented manpower, the missions and the business strategies
of the companies are being defined more clearly. Today, it
is a necessity to use the compensation management as a strategic
tool for the organization.
© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved
HR
ISSUES
Rupee
Appreciation and Human Resource Management in Indian IT Industry
-- V Pandiraja
The
currently appreciating rupee against dollar has exposed the
vulnerability of the rising stars of Indian economy: IT, ITES
and BPOs. The impact is multi-dimensional ranging from plummeting
the profits of the IT companies to depletion of talent pool
of these companies due to attrition. The impact is widespread
and even the top four giants of Indian IT industry, TCS, Infosys,
Wipro and Satyam, have not been spared. Attrition in the IT
industry is not an uncommon one but the pace of attrition
in the first quarter of the financial year 2007-08 reveals
a different story. There were some cases of forced attrition.
All the top four Indian IT firms are gearing up their human
resource management strategies for adjusting to the unique
situation created by rupee appreciation. Other strategies
like new contract acquisition and hedging are used to mitigate
the effect of the new challenge of rupee appreciation.
© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved
HR
ISSUES
HR
Issues and Challenges : Indian Armed Forces
-- Col. PSV Ramana
There
has been a yawning gap between what is known to the general
public, its expectations about the Armed Forces of the country
and their HR practices. While it is reasonable to expect sensitive
defence and security related issues to be kept out of public
glare, subjecting the issues at large and challenges the Armed
Forces face in their HR domain to academic debate would be
mutually beneficial. Certain important HR issues and challenges
like selection and recruitment, training and development,
performance management, stress management and post-separation
HRM are discussed and insights thereof provided.
© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved
TALENT
MANAGEMENT
Managing
the Talent Crunch : The Smart Approach
-- S Murali
The entire industry and employers are today crying about
the great Talent Crunch. i.e., the lack of availability or
short supply of educated, skilled and ready-for-job candidates
who are required to meet the growing work needs of the industry
in various sectors of our economy. Every seminar on HR generally
has some subject connected with this issue. Many experts feel
that there is an acute shortage of right type of talent and
hence an urgent need for action plans to counter the effect
of Talent Crunch at workplace. The realization seems to have
dawned on many employers that certain short-term and long-term
measures need to be initiated both within and outside the
organization to alleviate the ill effects of such Talent Crunch.
This article tries to examine this issue in greater depth
across sectors and across various constituents that come into
play to render Talent Crunch ineffective. Certain specific
measures as suggested by industry experts are also included
as part of the approach.
© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved
COMPETENCY
MAPPING
Employee
Competency and Trust Management
-- Smitha Das
The
article gives an idea about the importance of employee competency
development in building trust among the staff. It explains
the process of competency mapping and creates awareness about
the competency gap analysis that helps the workforce to identify
its strengths and skills, perform as per the needs and wants
of the employer. It helps in making the employees loyal and
trustworthy. It also discusses some training and development
practices imparted by the organizations to make the employees
knowledgeable, skilled and competent. It points out how a
firm can build employee trust by showing keen interest in
his professional development.
© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved
RETENTION
STRATEGIES
Retention,
the HR Mantra of Today!
-- Sai Lakshmi
Show a fresh graduate a `No vacancy' board and she'll
probably burst out laughing. Better still, she might just
go and join that acting course she's been dying to attend.
In times like these when fresh-faced undergraduates are being
wooed off their campuses and middle-level managers choose
between multiple job offers, the buzzword is retention. The
market belongs to the employee. Just a few years ago, the
word `job-hunt' meant exactly that. A dearth of opportunities,
endless bargaining on salary, being caught in the vicious
`no-experience-no-job-no-experience' cycle were just a few
of the challenges a job-seeker faced. But not anymore! This
article explores several techniques followed by employers
to retain and to engage their best talent. After all, there's
nothing as good as having an employee married to the organization!
© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved
CASE
STUDY
Mattel's
Workforce Strategy
-- K Mallikarjunan
Mattel,
the world's largest toy company designs, manufactures, markets,
and distributes a wide variety of toys and games in 150 countries.
CEO Jill Barad's (Barad) growth-by-acquisition strategy has
misfired and the company has posted hefty losses. Robert Eckert
(Eckert), who replaces Barad as the CEO in May 2000, has decided
against a cost cutting strategy to shore up profits. Instead,
he focuses on human resource (HR) management to turn the ailing
company around. Eckert commissions a global internal survey
to understand what Mattel has been doing right and what it
has been doing wrong from the perspective of workers. He tries
to unify the workforce by creating tangible development programmes
to generate a more skilled and competitive workforce and establish
metrics to understand how the workforce is performing. He
also sets up a systematic succession strategy to retain Mattel's
homegrown talent.
© 2007 IBS case Development Center.
All Rights Reserved.
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