Career Development Practices

NHRD Network Journal

Building Sustainable Organizations: Role of HR January 2014

ISSN - 0974 - 1739

NHRD Network JournalJanuary 2014 Volume 7 Issue 1

www.nationalhrd.org

A Quarterly Publication by The National HRD Network

Innovation and HR

N T Arunkumar

Dr. Sandeep K Krishnan

S Deenadayalan

Saurabh Govil

Dr. K Prabhakar

Akash Bhatia

Curt Coffman and Ashish Ambasta

Gargi Banerji and Sunil Pillai

Sukumar Rajagopal

Sandeep Kohli

www.nationalhrd.org

Nati onal HRD NetworkThe Nati onal HRD Network, established in 1985, is an associati on of professionals committ ed to promoti ng the HRD movement in India and enhancing the capability of human resource professionals, enabling them to make an impactf ul contributi on in enhancing competi ti veness and creati ng value for society. Towards this end, the Nati onal HRD Network is committ ed to the development of human resources through educati on, training, research and experience sharing. The network is managed by HR professionals in an honorary capacity, stemming from their interest in contributi ng to the HR profession.

The underlying philosophy of the NHRDN is that every human being has the potenti al for remarkable achievement. HRD is a process by which employees in organizati ons are enabled to:

• acquire capabilities to perform various tasks associated with their present and future roles;

• develop their inner potential for self and organizati onal growth;

• develop an organizati onal culture where networking relationships, teamwork and collaboration among diff erent units is strong, contributi ng to organizati onal growth and individual well-being.


INNOVATION AND HRVolume 7 Issue 1 January 2014

NHRD Network Board MembersNational President: Mr Rajeev Dubey, President (Group HR & After-Market) & Member of the Group Executive Board, Mahindra & Mahindra

Past National President : Dr. T V Rao, Chairman - T V Rao Learning Systems

Dr Santrupt Misra, CEO, Carbon Black Business & Director, Group H.R. - Aditya Birla Management Corporation Pvt Ltd Dwarakanath P, Advisor-Group Human Capital - Max India Aquil Busrai, Chief Executive Offi cer - Aquil Busrai Consulting

NS Rajan, Group Chief Human Resources Offi cer and Member of the Group Executive Council, TATA Sons Ltd

S Y Siddiqui, Chief Operating Offi cer - Administration (HR, Finance, IT & COSL), Maruti Suzuki India LtdRegional Presidents: East: Nihar Ranjan Ghosh, Executive Director (HR) - Retail Sector, Spencer’s Retail LtdSouth: L Prabhakar, Vice President (HR) Agri-Business Division, ITC Ltd West: Ms Anjali Raina, Executive Director, Harvard Business School North: Ms Veena Swarup, Director (HR), Engineers India LtdNational Secretary: S V Nathan, Director Talent (US-India), DELOITTENational Treasurer: Ms Shelly Singh, Co-Founder & EVP, People Strong HR ServicesDirector General: Kamal Singh Editorial Team Sriram Rajagopal, Vice-President – Head HR, Cognizant Technology Solutions (Guest Editor for this issue) Dr. PVR Murthy, Managing Editor, CEO, Exclusive Search Recruitment Consultants, [email protected] Dr. Pallab Bandyopadhyay, Director - Human Resources, Citrix R&D India Pvt. Ltd., [email protected] Dr. Arvind N Agrawal, President - Corporate Development & Group HR, RPG GroupPublisher, Printer, Owner Kamal Singh, Director General, NHRDN and Place of Publication on behalf of National HRD Network, National HRD Network Secretariat, C 81 C, DLF Super Mart, DLF City, Phase IV, Gurgaon122 002. Tel +91 124 404 1560 e-mail: [email protected] at Nagaraj & Co. Pvt. Ltd., 156, Developed Plots Industrial Estate, Perungudi, Chennai 600 096. Tel : 044 - 66149291The views expressed by the authors are of their own and not necessarily of the editors nor of the publisher nor of authors’ organizations

Copyright of the NHRD Journal, all rights reserved. Contents may not be copied, emailed or reproduced without copyright holders’ express permission in writing.

NHRD fi rmly believes in and respects IPR and we appeal to the contributors and readers to strictly honour the same.

For any further clarifi cations, please contact :

The Managing EditorDr. P V R Murthy, CEO, Exclusive Search Recruitment Consultants, #8, Janaki Avenue, Off 4th Street, Abhiramapuram, Chennai 600 018.

[email protected]

ABOUT THE JOURNAL

The National HRD Network publishes a semi-academic quarterly journal where in each issue is dedicated to a theme.

The journal publishes primarily three categories of articles :

• Conceptual and research based

• Contributions from thought leaders including a limited number of reprints with due permission

• Organizational experiences in HR interventions/mechanisms.

About this issue :

This issue is on the theme of ‘Innovation and HR’. This covers a range of topics around demystifying innovation and innovative HR practices successfully followed by some organizations.

Editorial Board Members :

Dr. P.V.R. Murthy, Managing Editor is a product of I.I.T., Kharagpur and IIM, Calcutta with close to thirty years experience in H.R. fi eld. He founded and runs an executive search fi rm Exclusive Search Recruitment Consultants. He is associated with a number of academic institutions. He is trained in TQM in Japan and in human processes from ISABS and NTL, U.S.A. He is the Past National Secretary of National HRD Network.

Dr. Pallab Bandyopadhyay is Director - Human Resources Citrix R&D India PVT Ltd. A doctoral fellow from XLRI and AHRD, he is trained in OD and Human Processes from NTL, USA and he believes in applying HR concepts to practice to make it more meaningful and effective. He is a mentor and coach to many young HR professionals.

Dr. Arvind N Agrawal - Dr. Arvind N. Agrawal, Ph.D. serves as the President and Chief Executive of Corporate Development & Human Resources and Member of Management Board of RPG Enterprises. Dr. Agrawal has worked at RPG Enterprises since 1999 and his current responsibilities in RPG comprise of HR and TQM. Agrawal held senior positions in Escorts and Modi Xerox. He was the past National President of the National HRD Network. Dr. Agrawal is an IIM Ahmedabad alumnus and also an IIT Kharagpur alumini, and also holds a PhD from IIT Mumbai.

Dear Readers, The National HRD Network has been bringing out a semi-academic, theme based, quarterly journal for the last few years. It aims at compiling and publishing the professional views and experiences of reputed HR professionals, line professionals, CEOs, researchers, academicians in each theme area. We carry out extensive research, identify and invite persons who have eminent publications or have rich experience in the theme area to contribute articles for each issue. Through the journal, we aim to build a body of knowledge in all facets of HR which is not otherwise easily available for the current and future HR Professionals. So far, close to 350 eminent authors have contributed articles. Each issue is guest edited by a person of eminence in the concerned theme area.This journal is circulated free to the members of NHRD Network to stimulate their thinking and towards their professional development.

Publications so far have been based on themes such as :

• “IT in HR”• “Performance Management” • “Attracting and Retaining Talent” • “Career Management” • “Organizational Change” • “Global HRM” • “Women in Corporate Leadership Roles”• “Organization Development” • “Learning and Development” • “Leadership”• “Work-Life Balance”• “Institution Building”• “Coaching For Performance and Development” • “Human Resources Management in Rapid Growth Organizations”• “HR Competence”• “HR and Employee Relations”• “CEO and HR”• “People Power – Draw, Drive and Deliver”• “Getting HR Ready for Gen Y”• “CSR & HR”• “Shapes and Structures of Organizations - Today and Tomorrow”• “Managing Change, Transformation and Enhancing Competitiveness : The HR Role”• “Dots and connections: winning hearts and minds through internal communication”• “Skill Building and HR”• “Technology and HR”• “Social Media and HR”.• “Building Sustainable Organizations : Role of HR”

The copies of these issues of the journal can be accessed from www.nationalhrd.org.

The current issue is on the theme of “Innovation and HR”.

Some of the guest editors for future issues include Dr. Pallab Bandhopadhyay, Director - Human Resources, Citrix Systems, Ms. Anjali Raina, Executive Director, Harvard Business School India Research Center and L. Prabhakar, Vice President, HR, Agri-Business Division, ITC.

This is your journal and will be as rich as you want it to be.

In order to further enrich it, we would like to receive your

1. qualitative feedback on issues brought out so far, and

2. suggestions for themes to be covered in our future issues;

3. Any other suggestions.

Kindly send in your thoughts to [email protected]

Dr. PVR MurthyManaging Editor(On behalf of the Editorial Team)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Our heartfelt thanks to all the contributors of articles, who have taken time off from their

busy schedules out of their passionate interest in the fi eld of HR and Sustainability.

We acknowledge the excellent contribution of the Guest Editor - Sriram Rajagopal,

Vice-President – Head HR, Cognizant Technology Solutions for conceptualizing the entire

issue and inspiring all busy experts in the fi eld to share their thoughts. We are grateful to

the support of Ms. Shruthi Sridharan, Ms. Sandhya Ramesh and Mr. Raj Dharmaraj of

Cognizant Technology Solutions.

We acknowledge the support from Sunathy of Exclusive Search for passionately working

with me.

– Dr. PVR Murthy, Managing Editor(On behalf of the Editorial Team)

CONTENTSS.No. Title of Article Author Page No.

1. Every Business Is A ‘People Business’ N T Arunkumar 1

2. Contemporary Thoughts in Theory and Dr. Sandeep K Krishnan 8Practice on Career Development

3. Innovation and HR S Deenadayalan 14

4. Innovation and HR Saurabh Govil 22

5. Innovation and HR in Apollo’s Dr. K Prabhakar 26Journey to Excellence

6. Social Analytics in HR Akash Bhatia 32

7. Is it Time to Replace Human Resources Curt Coffman and 36with People Energy? Ashish Ambasta

8. Inclusive Human Resource Development – Gargi Banerji and 42A HRD Trajectory For Development of Sunil PillaiDisadvantaged Groups

9. Old Innovation or New Innovation? Sukumar Rajagopal 52

10. Innovative HR practices – engaging Sandeep Kohli 55multi-generational workforce

Book Reviews

11. Orbit Shifting Reviewed by: Raj DharmarajManagement — Developing Sustainable Business Organizations

EDITORIAL COMMENTS

According to Wikipedia, “innovation is the application of better solutions that meet new requirements, unarticulated needs, or existing market needs.” The term innovation can be defi ned as something original and, as a consequence, new that “breaks into” the market or society.

AS HR professionals, we are constantly on the lookout for the next big motivating infl uence or value driver, that improves productivity levels of individuals and teams, and also betters business performance and outcomes.

The Human Resource function by itself evolved through an innovative idea of actually treating employees as more” human” and less “resource”. Through the past few decades, the HR function has tread lightly in organizations, always the silent enabler, watching out for the welfare of employees.

Driving innovation took back seat to a lot of mundane tasks that had to get executed to keep the engine running. Today technology has begun to replace many a HR task, and as a function, we have evolved to partner with business in a market that has become totally knowledge, and hence people intensive. So there is an increasing need for us to differentiate and restate our objectives and the way in which we contribute to our roles.

HR plays a dual role of constantly reinventing its processes, and coming up with creative ideas to better engage with employees. This has given rise to a lot of path breaking and innovative people practices across the word. The other important mandate that any HR organization has, is to preserve and nurture the culture of innovation. Without new ideas it is impossible for organizations to seed new projects, new teams or even new markets. Hence HR teams hold the tenuous and challenging tasks of both innovating and enabling an innovative culture in any organization.

SRIRAM RAJAGOPAL

(Guest Editor for this issue)

Vice-President – Head HR, Cognizant Technology Solutions

“Innovation and HR” is the theme for the current issue of NHRD Journal. This is a topic that is close to my heart and also extremely relevant for every professional of today, from a CXO, to HR head, to the youngest employee in an organization.

This issue covers a range of topics around demystifying innovation, innovative HR practices that some organizations practice successfully, and specifi cally, the role that every HR team in an organization has to play to facilitate innovation, and innovative practices.

We have made an attempt to cover a myriad of industries, to showcase the fact that irrespective of the fi eld, innovation is instrumental for organizations to thrive in today’s market. We have talked about the concept of which is better – “Old “ or “New” innovation. There are scores of real life examples that our authors have thoughtfully put together which take you closer to understanding how different companies have used the premise of innovation to push their companies into newer trajectories of growth.

I would like to take a few line to thank the team of NHRD for having given me this opportunity to play the role of “Guest Editor “for the January issue. Without their support, follow up and most importantly guidance, we would have never been able to put together such a rich issue. A big thanks and hearty appreciation to each and every author who contributed with their thought provoking and often “from the heart” experiences.

As we step into 2014, there is no other value apart from “Innovation” that an organization has to embrace roses ,thorns and all to remain competitive and relevant to both customers and its employees. Not only at business houses, but innovation at grass root levels is relevant for all industries be it high tech companies, multi crore health providers, or NGOs that strive tirelessly with efforts to include the disadvantaged into the mainstream. HR practitioners are constantly innovating in their ways of working, and helping

build a culture of innovation that impacts every individual’s life. The smallest of ideas creates the biggest of impact.

I had the good fortune to interact with HR stalwarts and leaders while compiling articles on the topic of Innovation and HR for this issue. It has been a privilege to put this journal together, and here is a sneak peek into what you can expect in this issue.

In his snappy and to the point article titled “Every Business Is A ‘People Business’” loaded with real life examples, N.T.Arunkumar talks about how innovation is a strategic differentiator for any company. He quotes two real life examples of a start up KPO, and an old world bank, that had to strive to make a mark on their customers using innovation in their solution offerings to clients. The contrasts and the similarities in the way the two had to innovate to make themselves more valuable to their employees and customers have been detailed.

He also pens his learnings from the two experiences , breaks myths regarding a centuries old bank’s commitment and turnaround due to innovation, and proves time and agin, how when the right ideas are given the right impetus, nothing is impossible.

He shows us that HR plays a key role in infl uencing elements like organizational alignment, leadership alignment and culture, and that they need to understand the customers intimately . He elaborates that the role of HR lies in resolving innovation paradoxes in the organization’s culture and owning the learning process of innovation.

In his well-researched article on “Contemporary Thoughts in Theory and Practice on Career Development,” Dr. Sandeep K. Krishnan explores the journey that organizations have undertaken in trying to manage career aspirations and career growth. He presents the debate on who is ultimately responsible for an employee’s career – the organization or the employee himself, and showcases examples of companies

that have implemented both these models in their own ways, fi nally leading to the conclusion that both the employee and organizations have equal ownership, and have to adopt innovative short term and long term strategies that align to industry, size, and nature of employees.

In his aptly titled article, “Innovation and HR”, S.Deenadayalan defi nes innovation as a combination of the “IN” (inner journey) + “OVATION” (triumph sans war) and as a self-actualization process which brings about an intrinsic pride in one’s achievements – innovation involves transformation of the dream to hard reality. He insists that “The mark of a true innovator is to persevere, to convert what is initially considered the whim of a madman to the need of the masses.“

He poses important questions to HR on whether they are themselves business-savvy, hyper aware of the actual customer, encouraging the culture of permitting failure and most importantly questioning status quo constantly.

The writing on the wall for HR is clear, he says, that they have to reinvent themselves, and make themselves indispensable to business, rather than skirting around the edges of the same as an enabling function which guards status quo.

Saurabh Govil, in his article “Innovation and HR” talks about how organizations and HR teams of the organization need to approach innovation.

He talks in detail about, whether one should focus on incremental innovation or disruptive innovation. He also takes a view counter to popular belief that innovation is the onus of every individual. While acknowledging that there are some challenges that one has to manage, he talks about how Wipro, has two distinct teams – one which continues to run the business, and makes incremental changes to existing processes, and a team of break out individuals and teams, who are given the space and resources to come out of their area of work / comfort and come up with ideas

that are completely transformational HR, he feels needs to play a key role driving synchronization between the two.

He says that leadership and culture are the basis for innovation in organizations and he goes on to talk about how HR has the support and mandate in most organizations to cultivate, reward and preserve the culture of innovation.

Healthcare is one of the most enriching services that each and every one of us has experiences, and we were fortunate to get Dr. Prabhakar from Apollo group of hospitals to give us their inputs on how Apollo has managed to navigate the waters in their journey to excellence.

This article covers the changes brought at Apollo to align the on-boarding experience and how existing employees are constantly coached on the concept of customer centric experience building through innovative interventions like - Apollo Acculturation Program for imbibing excellence: (AAPIE) and HOPE: (Hospital Orientation Program for Entrees) They have talked about HR’s contribution in managerial capability building and developing internal process improvement teams by deploying Lean Six Sigma methodology supported by the certifi cation process from the Indian Statistical Institute. A notable process is PEACE: (Preceptee Education and Competency Evaluation) which integrates mentorship based learning, and helps new entrants assimilate faster into their line of work.

They also give us insights about Apollo’s role in creating professionals at different levels in the health care space by joining hands with National Skill Development Corporation. I am confi dent that with their innovative practices Apollo will not only touch, but will actually enrich a billion lives.

Akash Bhatia in his article “Social Analytics in HR” talks about, how with the abundance of information, and processing tools available today, one can literally crystal ball gaze into the future and accurately predict what users / consumers / employees want or are likely to do. Predictive analytics he feels, is the tool not of the future,

but of the present, that will allow HR to get deeper insight and knowledge, and precognition about the future of the organization that they could use to drive a favorable outcome.

Enjoy this eye opening article on how companies store away data from every click of the mouse / keyboard stroke that you make, to enable employers to predict behaviors of their employees better.

In their article “Is it Time to Replace Human Resources with People Energy?“ Curt Coffman and Ashish Ambasta from People Business talk about the fact that with changing employee contexts, but we need to stop considering people as resources and opt rather to look at them as powerhouses of energy and infi nite possibilities.

He proposes the idea of “people energy” instead of “Human Resources” and elaborates on the “laws” of leveraging this energy. He believes that People Energy is either used or wasted, it cannot be stored:, and PB Coffman, have segmented employees based on this into actively engaged, passengers and actively disengaged populace.

He gives us a view into some of the world’s best organizations that have brought out some key themes where you manage this energy into abundance and have succeeded in harnessing this to annihilate competition.

We also had the good fortune of being able to get the thoughts of Gargi Banerji and Sunil Pillai, from Pragya, on how HR can play an instrumental role in the development of disadvantaged groups in their article on inclusivity.

This non-profi t organization talks about how people deprived of the benefi ts of development can be brought back into the circle of development. They talk about a structured framework which they have themselves managed to implement, with a 3 pronged strategy for human resource and social capital development.

They have beautifully articulated how HRD for societies needs to display an inclusive orientation, and use a ‘selective

support & development’ approach, with a bias towards the disadvantaged, and deliver muti-level interventions aimed at enabling, developing and empowering them.

Sukumar Rajagopal, stimulates our thinking by urging us to think about where we need to invest our time and energy – on “old innovation “or “new innovations”. He tells us about how we are typically conditioned to think that coming up with something new, is considered innovation, rather than improving an existing product, and that in reality irrespective of whether the innovation is brand new or incremental, companies need to minimise risk by adopting the “portfolio approach “ to innovation. If we donot consider the the 70 : 20 : 10 rule, we risk missing out on 90% of innovation opportunities available in the core / adjacent businesses.

In his invigorating insight into E and Y’s Innovative HR practices on engaging multi-generational workforce, Sandeep talks about the “Whole of Life” proposition that their company offers to every employee. They believe in providing their people with the best in class experience irrespective of their skills, experience, gender or age groups.

Every employee is provided with an exceptional experience in E and Y that adds value to their career and personal growth. Their people interventions hinge on building long lasting relationships with the diverse demographies of people in. The article crisply outlines all the best practices that E and Y has to attract, engage, grow, develop , reward and make people feel included as a part of the E and Y fold.

Last but not the least, the book review of “Orbit Shifting Innovation – The dynamics of ideas that create history” by Rajiv Narang and Devika Devaiyah gives us inside information on one of the most refreshing pieces of business thought-leadership to be published in India in recent times. The aim of the book sets the tone fi rmly for the entire work-“making innovation the transforming agent for the organization and the nation”. The authors’ overarching

Dr. PVR MurthyHonorary Managing Editor on behalf of the Editorial Team

Dr. Pallab Bandyopadhyay

Dr. Arvind N Agrawal

purpose is to bring more clarity to understanding the dynamics and enablers that accompany truly breakthrough innovations. The book is developed around insights drawn from several hundred breakthrough innovation missions that Erehwon has facilitated across a spectrum of Indian and MNC organizations, leadership strategy sessions related to transformative engagements and ongoing primary research into innovation processes across a wide range of organizations - from J&J and Unilever in FMCG, to Vestergaard and Vodafone in Healthcare and Telecom, through to Grameen Bank and Tamilnadu Police in the Social and Government sectors.

I hope you have a great time and a rich learning experience reading the articles that we put together in this edition of NHRD Journal. I hope we could provide you some thought provoking ideas on how you can innovate in your line of work, and how as HR professionals you can drive and nurthure the culture of innovation, that will take your function and company to greater heights.

January | 2014 NHRD Network Journal 1

About the Author

N.T. Arunkumar a wannabe wandering story-teller, aspiring school teacher and enthusiastic enough to try anything new from Mandarin to Meditation, Arun wants to live to learn. Keenly interested in technology, innovation and how organizations deal with talent, Arun is also drawn to behavioral science and its infl uence on business and leadership. When not reading, biking or having illusions of becoming a wild-life photographer, he works

in UBS as Managing Director of its global partnership and transformation strategy, heading its innovative offshored footprint in Asia. Arun is a PM&IR graduate from XLRI Jamshedpur.

EVERY BUSINESS IS A ‘PEOPLE BUSINESS’N T ARUNKUMAR

Innovation is now a strategic differentiator for any company, be it a startup or a

large, globally established business. But innovation is not anymore about a one-time creative product or a market disruption. To be a sustainable competitive advantage, innovation must permeate throughout the organization beyond any one single dimension of product, market or customer. Some of the most ‘innovative’ companies of past don’t exist anymore – think Kodak. The most pioneering product organizations are struggling to remain relevant in today’s rapidly changing customer demands – think HP. The most innovative marketing campaigns that launched entire industries have been over-shadowed by radical startups – think advertising and Google. More books have been written about innovation recently than any other topic of management. Every industry, every company and every market segment has a noteworthy example. While the formula for sustainable innovation remains debatable, I will narrate two stories here that capture, in my fi rst-hand experience, the essence of

innovation as an organizational principle. Both are stories you will not fi nd mentioned in any management theory or book (not yet, at least!). With these stories I want to underscore why innovation is more about people and culture than anything else. They will hopefully inspire HR practitioners to play a proactive role in defi ning the culture of an organization and leading it to enable innovation more as a habit than as a measure of desperation.

Once Upon a Time in Chennai – how documents started getting produced like cars!

Sometime in the early 2000’s, in between the Y2K sigh-of-relief by the IT industry and coping with the after-effects of the dot-com meltdown, a startup KPO company was bringing to India a new type of work not attempted before as an offshore service. India then, much less Chennai, was an unlikely destination for anything innovative in the fledgling services industry. Imagine printing an entire IPO prospectus of an American corporation remotely. Or being the invisible support

2 January | 2014 NHRD Network Journal

to an Investment Banker as she presents a pitch book to an M&A client. How do you decouple what is considered an intimate part of a business transaction and deliver it seamlessly from several time zones away, produced by twenty-somethings right out of college? And how do you do it consistently and at global scale? Such leapfrogging in service delivery was beyond mere ‘strategy’ and ‘technology’ – what it required was innovation at every level of process, in every function of the fi rm.

IT and Communications technology redefi ned “remote” in the last two decades, thereby creating the whole paradigm of offshore delivery, at a fractional cost, done by talent pool half the Western worker’s average age and with unprecedented agility and smarts. Knowledge, as in the traditional sense of “experience”, got redefi ned too. You could train someone to write research reports and analyze equities movements across markets, while you shifted focus to managing changing client requirements and re-engineering process for effi ciencies. As this shift was beginning to happen, this company had a huge challenge to overcome for its largest client, a fi nancial printer in the US. The problem was this: the company produced documents for the printer – a ‘soft copy’ of what it fi nally printed physically for its clients – that involved a dozen different skills (e.g. content creation, editing, type-setting, proof-reading etc) and hundreds of specifi cally trained people, with seasonal demand and unpredictable skills definition in each batch of jobs sent offshore. While initial service was about hiring and training, scaling up was becoming impossible because you couldn’t just hire a few hundred people during peak season and let them idle (or even let go) at other times. The training investment was high. This line of business was the company’s mainstream revenue

source, while it was diversifying into the emerging “BPO” verticals. So it was critical a solution was found to (a) deliver peak demand predictably and consistently and (b) develop a delivery model that was ‘configurable’ to demand fluctuations, retaining skills invested in already. Given the startup culture of the fi rm, there was no shortage of ideas. Filtering ideas on the fl oor, while still cranking up the delivery machinery for a 24x7 support and trying out the promising ones, was daunting. Because it is one thing to enthuse a whole company to generate ideas, quite another challenge to layer a management system on top of it to ensure the dual goals of keeping the lights on while implementing new changes.

Adapted from “Innovation is the process of idea management” by Tim Kastelle, University of Queensland Business School. Idea generation, ideas selection and ideas diffusion are all integrated and feed each other; execution is key. Enabling such an environment could be HR’s single biggest focus area, for innovative companies like Google, Apple et al are organizationally aware of where their great ideas come from and how to keep them coming!Growth through innovation is exponential and if such growth is the cornerstone of a company’s strategy then it must be based on a idea-driven people-culture.

To cut a long story short, the team realized that there was no “best practice” to learn from and hence the solution was not only to be designed from ground-up but had to be adopted, for dependability and time, from another successful industry which


from the customer organization, an investment in time and trust that had to be made to make the co-creation successful.

The result, after quite a few iterations, reconfi gurations and several small pilots, was astounding in a just a few months. On a reduced headcount, the team was producing more documents with lesser errors. What was even more exemplary was that each self-contained “cell” was a micro version of the larger team and could deliver independently. So, one single, linear machinery was redesigned into several full-scale machines that could distribute and manage loads in peak optimally while focus on training and re-skilling in low demand!

The “machines” were just teams of people with different skills. This was after all, a people-intensive business, enabled by IT. So, what were the lessons in innovation from this successful case?

deals with demand fl uctuations, product variations and specialized skilled labor. The auto industry was closest (coincidentally, Chennai was also developing into a major auto hub of India). The team piloted a new process confi guration – mapping every task (e.g. proof-reading = Quality Control, etc) to an assembly line process, resulting in the fi nal product (car = fi nished document). Toyota’s cell manufacturing process was adopted to create fully-functional “cells” comprising of all skills into one “unit” as against organizing the whole production around specialized functions moving from one task to another based on specifi c skills. The similarity between various “parts” (tasks) were identifi ed and grouped for standardization and similar processes (skills) were made adjacent for easier workflow. But the challenge was also to keep the customer fully engaged and involved in the process while still fulfi lling demand the old way. Hence the teams were seeded with representatives (“specialists”)

Cell: empowered teams form self-suffi cient ‘pods’ that are a miniature full-function process. Skills are re-used and teams are self-contained, multi-skilled units. Errors are self-corrected, output higher, faster with less resources.

Innovation in process engineering through cell manufacturing – adapted from automotive industry for fi nancial printing & document production.

Image source: Google search

Conventional process: linear, sequential workfl ow requiring more resources and time. Tasks move from one department to the next and functions have pre-requisites for task completion. Errors are expensive. Output is slow.


Here are the top three according to me that organizations (not just startups) and people managers can benefi t from:

• Empowerment is the critical enabler of an innovative culture. Innovation and risk-taking are closely inter-connected. A hierarchical, approval-seeking culture does not yield creative ideas. At the same time a free-for-all chaotic environment results in high risk and low predictability. A balance is needed and I believe the people function in any organization is most well-placed to defi ne – and exemplify –such a culture by facilitating the process of idea management throughout the fi rm.

Amplify the „fail early, fail small, rinse and repeat‰ culture in every team. Ideas are great but require enormous change management skills to implement firm-wide. Small pilots are critical pathways to learning what will work, while reducing impact of failure. Rewarding such behavior will go a long way in creating “startup managers” in the fi rm regardless of its size. Such a culture, again, must be defi ned – and evangelized – by the people function.

Customer is the most important partner in the innovation process. Everything starts with the customer, even the problem in the fi rst place! No innovation initiative will succeed – or even if does, sustain – if the customer is not an integral part of the solution building process. Partnership is based on trust and trust in turn is completely based on the credibility of the people facing-off to the customer, delivering to them daily. Such people in the fi rm must be placed in the forefront of any policy-making and should be used as a learning ground to design HR practices from.

But is innovation possible only in a startup environment? It is of course

natural for startups to embrace innovation quicker as there are no legacy cultures to overcome. But can large companies with old businesses innovate? How should they approach innovation? One way to look at it is to identify the most important component of such a fi rm (a market segment, geography, a product unit or even a function) requiring drastic transformation and treat it as a startup. Some fi rms have been successful in doing so but it is rare (running “skunk works” projects like in Motorola) and also risky. Internally in such organizations, managing two cultures becomes counter-productive and creates employee dissonance. But innovation-led transformations must sooner than later become a fi rm level initiative else the business model would become unsustainable. And such a large scale effort, while following the same principles of innovation like a startup, requires a radically different approach in redefi ning culture and change management. Again, without HR acting as a catalyst, such efforts get isolated into functional strategies without change in people behavior that drives long-term change.

Redefi ning Financial Services By Redesigning The Operating Model: Supply-Chain Innovation

The global fi nancial crisis culminating in 2008 fundamentally changed the economics of banking as also how banks are perceived as institutions by their stake holders. The post-crisis share holder confi dence, regulators’ heightened scrutiny and volatile global markets have put enormous pressure on banks’ profi tability and sustainability.

A large European bank, almost two centuries in existence, faced a triple


challenge as it began recovery from the crisis: huge fi xed-cost structure in shrinking markets, high risk-weighted assets in the balance sheet and dire need to reinvigorate revenue growth in a differentiated business model. All at the same time. And connecting the dots among the three challenges are some unique solution themes: move to variable costs, commercialize assets by unlocking their value in the market and leverage the fi nancial services eco-system by strategically collaborating with competitors and thereby co-creating new value for customers.

The back offi ce operations and technology functions of the bank, which together comprised over one-third the bank’s people and cost base, have to lead this transformation. For a bank steeped in European culture and traditions and hardly an example of global sourcing, such a change will not be possible without completely rethinking its operating model and componentizing its value chain. Which means defi ning and accepting that certain tasks, even functions, cannot and should no longer be done in-house. That certain

processes are better done by other fi rms, even industries, better than the bank itself in terms of both cost and quality. That along with customer demographics (a younger, more demanding and globally aware customer with lesser loyalty), the workforce demographics and talent availability are also changing rapidly, shifting East to countries like India and China. What this requires is innovation at three levels:

1. Operating Model: changing the way services are structured and executed, within and outside the bank. This also requires a redefinition of “core” and “non-core” in the business model. One way to look at it, for example, is to design all core services around the principles of (a) Customer Experience (b) Risk & Regulatory Management and (c) Capacity management. Another view would be to decouple business-aligned services from shared services and orchestrate processes around that segmentation. The key however is to partner with world-class providers to enable this new model.

2. Partnership Model: move from “core competency” to defi ning and executing “collective competency” in the value chain i.e., to collaborate to form market utilities, driving cost structures down while differentiating in customer service and

product offerings. Agent / correspondent banks, clearing / custody institutions, market infrastructure providers, BPO/ITO companies all become part of the ecosystem in delivering a new value and experience to the customer.


3. Supply-chain view of outsourcing: a strategic learning and input for the bank is from the electronics / hi-tech industry; post the shift from analog to digital the whole supply-chain landscape changed to highly specialized verticals (e.g. panels, storage, chips etc) while horizontally integrating assembly and product development. The suppliers extended the value-chain in a cost-optimized manner while the producer ‘owned’ design and customer experience. Apple is a classic example of this model and through its supply-chain innovation has achieved both cost optimization as well as exponential market growth.

But to deliver all of the above, the most important ingredient in the innovation strategy boils down to just good, old-fashioned aspect: leadership. Adapting and re-purposing the organization’s leadership culture to embrace globalization, become ambassadors of change and reiterate changing values through behavior becomes the cornerstone of the bank’s execution success. Supported by a strong intervention role played by the HR leadership, the bank has defi ned and ingrained in its people, a set of behaviors that exemplify the change; underscored further by integrating the values and behaviors with performance measurement at all levels.

Thus, the transformation strategy enabled by innovation translates into an execution plan that is demonstrated through behaviors and measured in a transparent manner. And again, if I were to summarize the key lessons learned from experience in implementing the above strategy, they mostly revolve around people.

Organizational alignment. A coherent, compelling and common message for change for all the employees delivered and reiterated in a consistent manner. Raising awareness of the fi rm’s situation and helping everyone recognize the drivers – and need – for the change is the crucial starting point.

Leadership alignment . The entire leadership team has to visibly commit to the change, putting the fi rm’s transformation agenda before self. This must be transparent to the entire organization. A simple example to demonstrate this would be to adapt fl exibly to new roles and responsibilities ahead of clarity emerging on organization structure etc.

Behaviors. Culture is nothing but sum total of people’s behavior in an institution. And it gets set right from the top. Bad culture will invariably defeat a good strategy. Change management begins with defi ning

“Industrialization” is the bank’s strategy for the innovative transformation program. This program attempts to do two things at the same time: standardize common processes and differentiate for customer experience & value. By segregating the execution strategy for shared services from that of the business-aligned services, the bank is much better focused and placed to tackle all challenges simultaneously: cost reduction, revenue & profitability growth and regulatory compliance.

Pic source: Gartner / CSC


the new set of behaviors and managing the cultural change required to institutionalize them.

So what can HR do to play a more infl uencing role in driving and sustaining innovation in an organization? If the above two examples – one in a startup and another in a large, old company – are anything to model the role on, I would extrapolate focus to the following:

1. Understand your organization’s customer’s business and their challenges as much as you try to know your business issues. All drivers for innovation start with the customer. A truly innovative culture cannot exist without an obsession for the customer. Think Amazon.

2. Proactively resolve innovation paradoxes in the organization’s culture. Not all cultures are ready for innovation; ideas are just a starting point that shows willingness. Ability to execute may vary depending upon how many confl icts are resolved effectively between for example a ruthless ROI focus versus long-term

change, between investment appetite and implementation ability etc. Such resolutions require intervention through analytics, OD and leadership rotations to provide clarity of purpose. Think Google.

3. Own the learning process of innovation. Like any other discipline of management, innovation too can be learnt and percolated through the organization’s ranks. It takes deliberate initiative, supported by enabling policies that recognizes risk-taking behavior and rewards entrepreneurial display of initiatives, and evangelizing together with the business the commitment of the organization to invest in creating an innovative culture. Think Cognizant.

All organizations and businesses, however technologically sophisticated, are fi nally about people. Because it is people who execute the strategy. Good execution is driven by a great culture that draws the best out of its people. Great organizations are about great culture and innovation is right at the center of this truism!


About the Author

Dr. Sandeep K. Krishnan is an Associate Director at People Business. He is a Fellow (Doctorate) of Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. Prior to joining People business, he has worked with organizations like IBM, Infosys, Ernst and Young, and RPG. As a consultant he has led large assignments in the areas of leadership development, talent management, and employer branding with both public and private sector organizations. He

is a certifi ed Global Professional in Human Resources (GPHR) from HRCI and has completed certifi cation in Executive Coaching from University of Cambridge. Sandeep is also an Adjunct Faculty at the Indian Institute of Management Indore.

CONTEMPORARY THOUGHTS IN THEORY AND PRACTICE ON CAREER DEVELOPMENT

Dr. SANDEEP K KRISHNAN

Career development has been an area of interest from an individual’s perspective for long. However, organizations have started taking a structured approach towards career development. In the past few years we have seen organizations focusing on practices that align with employee career development. Although career is one of the key element of employee retention, and ensuring that he/she sees a long term focus of the organization, structuring the softer aspects and harder aspects of career management is not easy. For example, we have seen organizations focusing on organization structuring; having detailed career paths supported by job descriptions, promotion criteria and venturing to change it as and when the business realities warranted. Clearly, it led to lack of understanding for employees in terms of what they can expect in the organization and very less in terms of options, what the whole structure meant for their career growth. So while established organizations had career management infrastructure and tried to make it as a unique proposition

for its employees, it was diffi cult to tailor to the aspirations and competencies of employees. In practice we would have seen tenure based promotions in private sector organizations that were no different from a bureaucratic government enterprise. For example, a software engineer would become a senior software engineer in two years and would probably become an assistant manager in another 3 years (the difference was only whether the year was good for business to give enough promotions). This eventually led to meaninglessness in career growth from an employee perspective. The concept of Protean Careers (Hall, 1996) also got attention with the whole career management becoming a responsibility of the individual employee and the belief that individuals should own their career and seek opportunities, develop themselves, learn continuously, and adapt to the changing environment. This context eventually led to the understanding that career management is a joint responsibility of employees and the organization – where


individuals need to have a say in making their career choices.

Current Concepts in Career Management:

One of the interesting concepts in career management that got interest of industry was Mass Career Customization (MCC) (Benko and Weisberg, 2008). The concept of Mass Career Customization brought forth two critical aspects. One there is a growing interest and trend to move away from the traditional hierarchy based career growth. Second, it supported the life cycle of a human being and their career. The key was giving an opportunity for individuals to have a say in customizing their career along four dimensions (Pace, Workload, Location and Schedule, and Role). This meant that the employee could have a say in terms of his/her pace of career progress, workload they would like to take up at any point of their career, location preferences and schedule, and role). The key was giving this choice would lead to higher employee retention and commitment. The second aspect was that it demystifi es the vertical growth aspect. Employees could take a choice to move vertically, horizontally, or even take a call to work at a lower responsibility level in a new area. It also provides employees massive scope in terms of career opportunities. For example, a Human Resource Head may choose to take up a functional sales head responsibility and then move on to be a marketing lead and come back as a HR Director. Similarly, a software engineer who is technology oriented, may choose to do a part-time MBA, do a special project in consulting and move in to IT consulting and after a few years return as a project manager in technology. The key is to understand that there should be mutual understanding between the organization and the employee and there is a long term focus. Which meant that it should be well entrenched into the talent and career

planning process in the organization.

Creating the “Soft Infrastructure”

Baruch (2006) studied eighteen career management techniques or practices that would be relevant or effective.

18 Practices studied by Baruch (2006)

1. Use of performance appraisal (PA) as a basis for career planning

2. Career counsel ing by direct supervisor

3. Career counseling by HRM unit

4. Books and/or pamphlets on career issues

5. Common career paths

6. Assessment centre

7. O t h e r w a y s o f i d e n t i f y i n g management potential

8. Dual ladder

9. Postings regarding internal job openings

10. Appraisal committees

11. Formal education as part of career development

12. Career workshops

13. Written personal career planning for employees

14. Retirement preparation programmes

15. Mentoring

16. PA as a basis for salary review

17. Management inventory (succession planning)

18. Training programs for managers

The study found that it is lack of information with employees about the programs and its relevance, lack of long term view about career, and lack of proper implementation of programs that leads to programs


not yielding its purported objectives. Interestingly, Budhwar and Baruch (2003) did a similar study with Indian organizations and found that organizations use these practices in different clusters. Some are related to planning (linking career development to performance appraisal), some are progressive (use of assessments like development centers), some are foundational (dual ladders), and aspects related to HR department (their involvement in career development) showed that HR is playing a more proactive role in career management in organizations. This also links up to the fact that HR is expected to have understanding of career guidance and development.

While looking at research and practices, the key elements of a career management infrastructure are broadly.

1. Information and understanding

2. Assessment and Guidance

3. Development

4. Internal Job Placement

Many organizations have invested along these lines to manage the career interests of its employees. For example, Infosys as described in Saha (2013) has developed the whole range of programs under the banner “Pathfi nder”. Pathfi nder is a platform that provides information about career streams and opportunities in the various business units, supports managers and employees to have career guidance discussions, enables career development through an array of development programs, and supports internal movements through “Career Fairs” and “Career Seminars”. As an organization which is large and has many career streams and job openings, career seminars and fairs helped individuals to get a fair amount of understanding of the opportunities available for them. Second, career guidance program helped them to have a conversation with their managers

and HR and develop a customized career development plan. Third, the development opportunities through formal training, job shadowing and internal special projects helped them for skills development, and get a fi rst hand idea about how the next job looks like. The key success factor of Pathfi nder was branding, support from leaders, programs that were easy to access by employees, and brilliant execution.

Similarly, at IBM, a whole array of career guidance resources was made available to its employees. Termed as “Learning @IBM” the focus on career development encourages employees to do a self assessment of their skills for a particular role or career path, use resources available that are customized for their development, and participate in organization wide development activities like “Mentoring” and “Job Shadowing”. The programs that are linked to talent review like “Bottoms-up”, or “Business and Technical Resources” also helped to identify the key resources in technical and business domain and fast track them through career development interventions.

The interesting aspect that both IBM and Infosys had used is having a route of real experiences that provides a vertical or horizontal job experience. IBM and Infosys have extensively used stretch assignments – mostly special projects and job shadowing to support career development of individuals. This gave individuals an opportunity to try out different functions and businesses or work in a different technology altogether.

Some of the organizations also use career development and opportunities aligned to it as a core employee value proposition. For example, RPG Group defi ned one of its core employee value propositions as “Diverse Strengths Diverse Opportunities”. While working closely with People Business on defi ning its value proposition,


research showed that employees having an opportunity to work across sectors and many having successfully moved are a great value proposition for current and prospective employees. The successful execution of this value proposition helped the group to leverage talent pool across group companies to its advantage and at the same time providing employees a canvas beyond their function or company to a larger group.

Career Development Elements:

The elements of career development clearly gives a lot of scope for organizations to develop practices in line with their size, industry, technology infrastructure, manager capabil i t ies , and talent management maturity.

Element Processes deployed

Information and understanding

Induction program

Recruitment related information

Employee internal website

Career related workshops, HR sessions, leader talks

Career portals

Employee stories

Assessments Employee self assessments

Career Assessments provided by organization

Manager assessment of potential

Development Centers

Team based assessments

Guidance Manager discussions during performance appraisal

Formal career guidance discussions

Up-line manager guidance

Formal talent review discussion and decisions

Development Career Development / Individual development plan

Mentoring

Job Shadowing

Coaching

Formal training

Special assignments

Career counseling

Special programs for top talent


breaks. The interesting point here is organizations are moving from formal training and focusing more on giving job experiences on the fi eld. Pathfi nder Next (internal internships at Infosys, that gives employees short term assignments (Saha, 2013), Stretch assignments at IBM (IBM, 2013), Results based coaching as practiced by consulting organizations like People Business are examples of on the job learning that also provides a clear outcome for the organization.

Organizations are also focusing on providing career support to retiring employees. Educational institutions like IIMs have given opportunity for their retiring professors to continue on a contractual basis till age 70. Similarly, it is not uncommon for senior professionals to get extension beyond their regular retirement age. Many growing fi rms that fi nd it diffi cult to find trained hands, have also opted to employ retired professionals. Large NBFCs like Manappuram Group and Muthoot have retired bank offi cers as their branch managers and use their service to groom younger managers. “Second Innings” by retired professionals is an interesting aspect that will be seriously looked at by corporate (Kunhikrishnan and Krishnan, 2009). Many benevolent organizations also prepare their senior executives with skills like executive

Element Processes deployed

Placement Internal job postings

Internal messaging

Internal job market

Employee CV and internal hiring

Promotions

Specialized leadership job fi lling based on internal placement drills as part of talent review planning and execution

Current research and theory rests at balancing individual and organizational objectives of career management. Based on Budhwar and Baruch (2003), it is important for organizations to realize that individual careers are not predetermined and also not completely fl exible as per organizational needs, it is important that individuals have a say in their careers and understand that individual preferences towards career will change with age, life stage, or approach towards work life balance or material success.

While most of the engagement surveys show that employees expect more in terms of career development and manager supporting them in the process, organizations are taking cognizance of this feedback and the focus has been mainly on hipo development (Bhattacharya,2012). The focus has been on giving them more live experiences that will stretch them beyond regular jobs and hence able to learn through action. Secondly, it is important that they get enough guidance and support from the ecosystem, including managers and experience a differentiated development support. Thirdly, it is important from the individual and organizational standpoint that feedback and assessment is done for their readiness for a new role as they grow. Organizations are also focusing on transitions like promotions, job moves, re-entry to job after sabbaticals or career


coaching to prepare for career post retirement.

Conclusion:

Career Development as a practice is going to be of more importance for organizations and the challenge would be to balance organizational and employee interests. While the processes can have a short term impact, the fruits of a deep career development program will be long term. It is also important

for organizations to deploy practices in line with their industry, size, and nature of employees. However, the common factor is that career development is about providing more information, giving individuals an opportunity to express their aspiration and assess their potential for the same, providing guidance and development opportunities and having a strong internal job market to support the fi nal outcome of career move.

References: Baruch, Y. (2006). Organizational career planning and management techniques and activities in use in high-tech organizations, Career

Development International, 1(1), 40-49.

Bhattacharya, S (2012). Companies like IBM, HCL Tech, Cognizant, others roll out initiatives to nurture young talent well, Accessed Online: http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-09-11/news/33763229_1_development-programmes-young-leaders-development-experiences.

Benko, C., and Weisberg, A. (2008). Mass Career Customization, Building the corporate lattice organization, Deloitte Review, Accessed online: http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-UnitedStates/Local%20Assets/Documents/Deloitte%20Review/us_ps_USDeloitteReviewMassCareerCustomization_051310.pdf

Budhwar, P.S., and Baruch, Y. (2003). Career management practices in India: an empirical study, International Journal of Manpower, 24(6), 699-719.

IBM (2013), Career Development, Accessed online : http://www-07.ibm.com/employment/bcs_career/non-flash/bcs_careers_development.html

Saha, S. (2013). Gaining the competitive advantage, Human Capital, Nov, 50-53.

Kunhikrishnan, K. and Krishnan, S. K. (2009), Second Innings, Human Capital, May, 29-31.

Hall, D.T.(1996). Protean Careers of the 21st Century, Academy of Management Executive, 10(4), 8-15.


About the Author

S. Deenadayalan is is the Founder, CEO and Architect Organizational Capability, Centre for Excellence in Organization. He has rich experience of over 4 decades and has worked with companies like ITC, Fenner, Dupont, etc.

INTO THE (W)INNER WORLD OF INNOVATIONS DEENADAYALAN

When we all think alike, then no one is thinking – one person looks at

a yellow dot and sees a yellow dot, but the innovator sees a sun lurking in the shadows of the yellow dot. Simply put, innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. Vincent Van Gogh said, “I dream my painting, and then I paint my dream”. Innovation thus is the intrinsic ability of the bold; those who dare to try rather than just sit back and accept that the well-trodden path is all we’re meant to travel.

It is not enough to just dream – innovation involves transformation of the dream to hard reality. The mark of a true innovator is to persevere, to convert what is initially considered the whim of a madman to the need of the masses.

Is innovation the same as improvement? When we fi nd better ways rather than new ways to do things, are we still being innovative? Is innovation the same as invention? If any new and workable idea is an invention, can it also be considered an innovation? The answer to all the above questions is a simple and emphatic YES.

Innovation is not something that can be taught, even in the best and most prestigious institutions – the wheel was invented long before we had our IIMs or Harvard, and some of the best and most-loved technologies of today were innovated by school and college dropouts. Today’s institutions on the contrary are only churning out more and more people who hold degrees, but are largely unemployable. This proves without a doubt that innovation is driven by an intrinsic passion to go one step ahead, to push the boundaries, to fi nd a way where there seems to be none, and to look for solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems.

Innovation and Human Resources

Is HR a fi eld that fosters innovation? Do we create an environment that encourages new ideas and welcomes new ways of doing things, or do we cling to tried and tested methods because they “work just fi ne”?

More often than not, innovation in organizations is stifl ed under the shadow of the mountain called organizational


plaguing the company. This gives credence to the innovative defi nition of innovation – the “IN” (inner journey) + “OVATION” (triumph sans war) is a self-actualization process which brings about an intrinsic pride in one’s achievements, a pride that drives you to innovate and deliver time and again.

The other school of thought, which thankfully did not become my DNA, is that “you need to keep a tight rein on your employees or they will screw up”. Traditional HR leaders believed in the power of warning letters rather than an environment of trust. I was exposed to this during my second job – when confronted with a tough and disgruntled union leadership and a messy Industrial Relations situation, innovative thinking helped me to take a bold call. I engineered the exit of 17 hardcore leftist union leaders and disgruntled employees – however, they left as “Entrepreneurs”, not as ex-employees. It was a win-win situation. Similarly, I used greeting cards rather than charge sheets to reduce absenteeism. Although my innovation was humiliated as soft pedaling at the time, the process sustained and absenteeism reduced, and today, many organizations use this technique effectively to manage IR.

Coming back to the question – Does HR foster and encourage innovation? Perhaps we can fi nd a convincing answer if we can answer the following questions satisfactorily.

1. Is HR Business-Savvy?

It was not when my career started; however, ten years down the line, in my innings at Titan, I was able to connect my role in HR to both business and innovation. I was provided with the space and autonomy to innovate, and out of the experiments we conducted were born many an innovation story.

hierarchy. If a voice is heard from the bottom of the pyramid, it is dismissed as the squeak of a mouse. That the mouse may be a veritable store of innovation is never considered – it is an insignifi cant mouse, therefore what it has to say is insignifi cant as well.

It is not my intention to don the hat of a pessimist, but having borne witness to the myriad roles of HR as a radical participant, an influencer and a passive observer during the course of my four decades in the function, I am suitably convinced that we have a long way to go to understanding the importance of and acknowledging innovativeness. In my experience, HR has more often than not distanced itself from innovation – the literature on innovation recognizes the value of small experiments, and even though HR is aware of this, they tend to treat experiments with considerable distaste. Yes, we have contributed signifi cantly to the dictionary of “jargons”, but can we take credit for allowing innovation to flourish? The answer to this question lies in how leaders view their people – do they leverage the brain power of the entire team or are they the sole custodian of innovative wisdom?

I am lucky to have been exposed to two different schools of thought during my early years in the HR fi eld.

My fi rst boss, the late Mr. PM Mathew, Director – Personnel, Mettur Beardsell, believed that to get the best out of people, you should “just give them the resources they need and get out of the way”. I may have felt a twinge of helplessness at being thrown into the deep end when it was time to deliver, but the inner spirit was pushed to fi nd an innovative solution to the problem at hand, and I believe that it was the space provided that allowed me to face 12 strong unions at the tender age of 24, and creatively solve the issues


Every member of the Titan team was highly engaged, innovative and participated in the varied aspects of business growth. The driver for innovation was the marked absence of “Buyable Skills”. Horology as a discipline was unknown in the early eighties when the country was more attuned to mechanical watches. The manufacturing facility was in Hosur, a backward district in those days, affected by Naxal movement and poor pass percentages at the school level. However, it was this adverse environment that allowed innovation to germinate.

If we couldn’t buy talent, we decided to build it. Rural talent from Government schools was mainstreamed, housed, foster-fathered, trained in hygiene and etiquette, and in Quartz watch manufacturing. Diversity was successfully introduced in the form of female and differently-abled employees, for business reasons and to address job monotony. The visually-challenged packed the watches, the hearing-impaired handled jobs in high noise areas, and dwarfs were put to manage stores – they were all done for business reasons, and the altruism was incidental. Ancillaries were created to manage tasks like washing of uniforms, and NGOs like MYRADA played an active role in their set-up.

Today, many of those employees have grown into managerial roles in and outside the TATA group and in different parts of the globe. Thanks to the innovation that was shown back in the day, business benefi tted and aspiration was on a continuum. Several books have been written about this model, and in a world where it is only the best organizations that can take pride in having ex-employees as their brand ambassadors, Titan can claim one of the top positions in this regard. I myself am proud to reiterate that “Titan is the University of Innovation in all disciplines of management”, and

has proved beyond doubt that HR is truly business savvy.

2. Are Customers in HR’s Radar?

HR in its traditional form has always been considered a pure service function, one which is more into facilitating internal customers and stakeholders. The business end is often left to the marketing and front-end teams. However, during my stint at DuPont, I understood the power that HR has in terms of connecting customers to the core of the organization – the workers from the grassroots. I call it my greatest “unlearning journey”, because the wisdom goes against what we are traditionally taught – that customer visits must be guided by the top management of the organization.

At DuPont, any visit by the Chairman or customers or other dignitaries was always handled by the people at the grassroots in all respects. It is they who took them around, spoke with eloquence on product pride and business vision.

Today, as a process consultant, wherever we work, visitors are taken around and looked after by the people at the bottom of the pyramid. Not only is it a powerful business pull factor with the customer perceiving high value in the process, it is also a simple yet powerful way to emotionally connect with the grassroots. A high employee engagement score is an incidental byproduct which is the pride of any company.

So yes, if innovation is encouraged, customers can be a part of HR’s radar in more ways than one.

3. Does HR Value the Inverted Pyramid?

Who are the most innovative contributors in any organization? Do we as HR invest enough time and effort in nurturing them and allowing their voice to be heard?


Contrary to popular belief, it is not the top executive teams that build long-term careers with any organization, but those at the grassroots. And it is they who are the critical drivers of innovation, whether they are in sales, manufacturing, R&D or any other function. It is they who work closest to the action, and this is why it is important that HR facilitates the creation of a space for their voices to be heard in the quest for innovation. Only then can we break the status quo myths that the bottom of the pyramid has the least to offer.

Training budgets however are lopsided, and more is spent on the white collar population and not the blue collars, because of the myth that white collars contribute more to productivity.

We should take a leaf out of the book of the leading retail chain Nordstrom, who, with more than 100 years in existence survives on bottom of the pyramid innovation. Every customer is most valued and their complaints are the input for new products. HR innovation is the only critical factor for sustained business success. The simple edifices they propagate are “Hire the Smile” and get the best out of ordinary people.

Similarly, Whole Foods is an annual winner of Fortune’s Best Places to Work award because the company is widely known for its customer service and profi ts. Its culture focuses on engagement, and this starts at the top and trickles down. For

example, leaders allow employees to help determine salaries, strive to make employees feel valued, provide generous benefi ts and practice a strong promote-from-within approach. Shareholders have been rewarded with stock appreciation significantly higher than industry standards.

Why is it that “Per Employee” suggestion is highest from the bottom of the pyramid in countries like Japan and Korea, and not in India? HR needs to start using the concept of Self-Managed teams to bring about greater empowerment at the grassroots level at all organizations, learning from the success of innovation through the inverted pyramid at companies like EID Parry, Dr Reddy’s, RPG Reychem, CEAT and Pepsi.

4. Is HR Permitting Failure?

Innovation calls for creating a “Permission to Fail” environment. Experimentation and risk taking are the key ingredients of innovation. Celebrating failures, like 3M does, creates a climate for innovation. The key challenge for HR is to get senior leadership to believe in employee experimentation. However, Stanford University’s 2013 CEO Performance Evaluation Survey found that boards typically hold CEOs and their leaders accountable for fi nancial metrics. Factors related to employee development and employee engagement are often considered to be less important.

Ideally, the CEO and senior leadership team possess the emotional intelligence and values to create high-performing work cultures. However, they are bound by the pressures of business targets and profi ts and other monetary issues. Here is where HR has an uphill battle to play the conscience-keeping role and campaign for and enforce factors relating to employee innovation. However, many a


time HR becomes more obligated than the employer to stifl e innovation. Bell curves take precedence over actual performance ratings, and HR often seems to have a risk assessment / risk mitigation mindset. Many in our HR fraternity have grown up in a quasi-legal world where their job is all about ensuring that the organization does not fall foul of labor laws. When it comes to Gen Y HR leaders, HR is at best the “POLICY POLICE” and “NAYSAYERS” of the organization.

The HR fraternity cannot fathom the concept of different strokes for different folks, as historically, HR has championed enterprise-wide programs, be it benefi ts administration, on-boarding programs or dress code. Permission to fail would mean treating each human being as a unique and valued contributor. Both mindless “cut and paste” best practices without connect to context or passion results in credibility erosion. HR analytics will go a long way in connecting individual passion to business passion.

5. Is HR focusing on Coaching or Poaching?

Be it McKinsey’s Global Institute in Washington or the National Skill Development Corporation, they all predict worldwide shortage of skills. In today’s supply-and-demand business world, it makes sense for organizations to build, not buy the talent they need.

However, talent building is an art that is more talked than walked. But because future talent is scarce or not readily available in the market, innovation becomes a compelling necessity.

When we hire, are we looking at the person behind the resume or being allowed to be led by false claims and the gift of the gab? Are we focused more on technology as a recruitment tool with assessments and instruments playing the lead role or

do we truly understand the talent that is required? Domain knowledge at the highest levels and academic excellence at entry points need not necessarily be the predominant “GO” factor during selection. Most of our organizations are modeled on the principles of manufacturing - linearity, specialization of labour and the division of labour; however, organizations are no more pyramidal with boxes and lines connecting people and positions. Virtuosity, matrix, globalism, demographics and time zones redefi ne structures of organizations and the skill sets of the people required.

If we have to really understand innovation, then the resumes of candidates should be trashed and the human behind the resume understood. Human resources should move away from being just a commodity or a billable resource. Cost arbitrage, business fl exibility and mindless competition result only in oxymoronic innovation. Outsourcing, benching of talent and higher reliance on staffing companies will only lead to emotional disconnect, which while seemingly ok in the short term, will definitely create immense damage in the long run. HR must fi nd innovative alternatives to remain cost competitive, rather than just donning traditional hats for talent acquisition.

One option is to under-hire for over-performance – with technology simplifying jobs and manufacturing skills being taken over by high-tech machines, there is no point in hiring highly skilled hands when not absolutely required.

Another is to avoid over-hiring for under-performance – many jobs can be done by basic graduates or high-school graduates who are intelligent, yet not highly qualifi ed, with a little grooming and training. Instead of hiring high end engineers and MBA grads who are over


qualifi ed, it makes innovative sense to reduce labour costs by building rather than buying talent at exorbitant rates.

From my personal experience, I fi nd that the “Learn and Earn” model is what HR needs – get intelligent people who are not really qualifi ed, custom-train them in the skills that are required, and you have a model that addresses productivity, retention and aspiration in one shot. Youth who have only completed their schooling have grown to managerial levels and contributed much to the business, after being trained in the necessary skills.

This approach removes the distinction between “blue” and “white” collar – rather, it focuses only on “career” collar. Companies that have seen their business benefi t from this model include Ashok Leyland, CEAT, Cavinkare, KEC, Reychem, Heinz and Dr. Reddy’s.

While a shortage of skilled labour has pushed organizations to adopt this model by default rather than design, the need of the hour is an industrial university to tap the innate abilities of the rural youth of our country.

6. Is HR Addressing Competency Shelf Life?

Gone are the days when products were made with longer shelf lives. Today, businesses swear by creative destruction where they continue to add value to their products. Resting on laurels implies you are mildly allowing the competition to swallow you whole.

Similarly, people must continuously update their competencies and skills, adding value to themselves and their roles. Competencies have a shelf life beyond which they are not recognized any longer, and these shelf lives are growing shorter by the day.

How can HR address this shortening of competency shelf lives? Must we focus our efforts on fi nding the right talent with all the competencies at the required levels, or can we go down the less-trodden path and innovate in how we enhance the competencies of the people who are already with us?

Arvind Eye Hospital has paved the way in innovating how we enhance competency levels in our workforce – with their in-house ophthalmologists performing ten times the number of surgeries the average ophthalmologist in the country performs, within the same time period, they have managed to train their nurses and equip them with the expertise required to handle parts of the surgeries. This in turn allows the doctors to perform more surgeries, and also add value to other areas of eye care – to quote an example, the hospital chain was importing intraocular lenses at $200 per piece; today, they are making the same lens at the same quality at $5 per piece and exporting it to 85 countries.

Arvind Eye Hospital’s resounding success is a testimony to the philosophy that a shared vision is all it takes to achieve greatness. The leadership team calls it an inner energy that the mind cannot comprehend. Beyond the IQ and EQ quotient, the SQ quotient is the most critical factor in tapping human innovation, and that is what they have achieved through ordinary people. HR actively catalyses the percolation of the organization’s vision to all its teams, then the very compelling vision inspires employees and motivates them to enhance their competencies continuously.

7. In an Era of Self-Service and Automation, is HR Contextually Relevant?

Another signifi cant area where HR faces an uphill challenge is the “humanization”


or lack thereof in the services it provides. Everything is automated today and the mouse has taken the place of personal interface. Self-service allows you to do pretty much everything – from buying a bus or plane ticket to getting the food of your choice delivered to your home to sending and receiving money through the touch of a fi nger, it’s all about reducing time and effort in getting things done.

HR has thus been reduced to automated pay slips and FAQs through a HRIS portal in most organizations. In this context, how relevant is the Human Resources function? Is HR able to innovate and address the hurdles posed by the invasion of technology into our lives? Or will it die out for want of the courage and conviction to voice these concerns?

Technology is great, no doubt. But the irony is that it also brings about a “distance” that results in issues like depression, loneliness and getting lost in the ocean of people and being just “one of the crowd”. Add to this the fact that your brain has less work to do and so rusts faster, and you have the makings of a “robotic” workforce, running on the fuel called technology and little else.

HR thus has a balancing role to play – innovative skills are required now more than ever to address the softer issues of isolation and the lack of creativity induced by mindless dependence on technology. How do we as a function enhance brainpower in a world that is increasingly being taken over by technology and SOPs? How can we induce more meaning into the roles of each employee so that the passion is retained and renewed, and the workforce remains fresh and rejuvenated? These are questions that only innovative thinking and doing will address.

8. Is HR Questioning the Status Quo?

The non–HR fraternity has always seen HR as the custodians of Status Quo.

Precedence determines policies and the tried and tested ways of doing things remain intact since change is seen as an “unnecessary complication”.

We talk big about Change Management, but it is more a jargon that we bandy about rather than a journey that merges business necessity with innovative ideas. We engage consultants to manage and bring about change through new initiatives, but we fail to encourage innovative thoughts and ideas in our own employees, the people who are closest to the action and who therefore, are best positioned to suggest and ideate positive change.

Just as research has due processes for hypothesis, validation, observation and synthesis, HR needs to create a process for sparking discovery skills in employees. By creating organizational processes that mirror individual discovery behaviors, innovative leaders can build an organization that acts differently and thinks differently, and by doing so, makes a difference not just in the industry, but on a global stage. One way to do this would be to include in the PMS system a component that rewards and recognizes questioning and challenging the status quo, and advocating creative and positive change.

Innovating the Future

The writing on the wall for HR is clear – innovate or incinerate! The innovation has to be a two-prong approach – innovation in the way HR is perceived and valued, and innovation in the way HR can add value to the workforce of an organization. Unless the change within happens, the change outside will only be a distant dream. So for HR to become and sustain itself as an innovator, it has to create a new avatar for itself – that of becoming a core part


of the business rather than remaining a support function that guards the status quo. Once this initiative is on the road to reality, then innovation can become a key aspect in adding value to the work-life of your workforce.

Innovation is the child born out of an encounter between an opportunity and a prepared mind. So HR should continuously sharpen its brain cells, and be on the lookout for the right opportunity, thus paving the way to innovating the future.


Innovation has stood the test of time and opinion. Several times over the course

of history, people have proclaimed that innovation has reached the ‘end’ of the line. Today, there are no doubts in the minds of people that innovation is key to be successful in any endeavor.

There are two dominant truths about Innovation:

i) When incubated well, innovation results in transformational improvement. ii) If this much-required innovation is managed poorly, that failure threatens the existence of an enterprise.

Either way, what is clearly evident is that if you are not innovating as an enterprise someone else will and that can erode your standing in the market.

Before we get in to the importance of innovation in HR it is worthwhile to understand why there is such an emphasis on the area today? On one hand, with the advances in technology, the cycle time and direct investment in innovation has reduced dramatically and on the other hand, the impact and reach of innovation has increased manifold. The Moore’s law (that computing power doubles

INNOVATION AND HRSAURABH GOVIL

About the Author

Saurabh Govil is the Senior Vice President- Human Resources for Wipro’s IT Business. He has responsibility for Talent Acquisition, Engagement and Development. He has been a HR practitioner for over two decades, having previously worked in organizations such as GE & ITC.

Saurabh is an alumnus of XLRI, Jamshedpur, where he completed his Masters degree in Human Resources.

approximately every two years) not only holds good across industries, but is also impacting the overall viability of the businesses. We are not just talking of incremental innovation but disruptive innovation, one which leads to a paradigm shift in the way we deliver or work.

Together this Disruptive and Incremental Innovation today are not just a ‘game-changer’, but a vital element of everyday effectiveness of businesses.

In this scenario the 2 critical questions for HR are:

1. Another much debated question is which approach works better? Should each employee be an innovator or is innovation the job of a specialist?

2. How do we help build an organization which encourages innovation and help the company grow?

I will fi rst talk about which approach is the better one.

Each employee an innovator or is this a specialist’s job?

The context of work and the services offered here is what determines the viability and scope of innovation in an organization. For


a back offi ce employee who is expected to follow an activity based work and keep the deviations to a minimum, innovation is not the expectation. The expectation here is of continuous improvement and that is innovation for these set of employees. In the daily work of deadlines, escalations, firefighting, adhoc customer requests expecting disruptive innovation is not viable.

Disruptive or transformational Innovation works best when you are away from the daily fi refi ghting mode and are able to look at the big picture. Everyone working on a big innovative disruptive idea is neither possible nor desirable. It is not desirable as customers` psychology tells us there are four broad segments of customers – early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards, these segments follow a normal curve distribution. If we have half of the population resisting change and is consuming the regular solutions, it makes complete business sense that their needs are catered to, these revenues are to be managed by maintaining the business as usual.

Moreover, any innovation rests on basic fundamental of allowing for the person to fail, and in such a case, performance management cannot be productivity based but on the merit of experimentation and idea incubation. In regular business, we have strict closure activities and to expect to innovate when working on a strict SLA of closure is far-fetched.

In that context I believe the organization is effective with both of these types of innovation -one where you work on rapid disruptive innovation and other where you maintain and continuously improve what the customers are consuming. At Wipro, we have this distinction, and the two segments which we have are – Run the Business and Change the Business. Run the business- team is responsible for the regular delivery operations which

customer is expecting day in and day out, and Change the business -team works without the responsibilities of the daily operations on creation of new solutions, which will help us leap frog into future.

An obvious logical criticism to the approach raised is - Are we by limiting the innovation to a small set of employees not prone to producing solutions which are idealistic and away from the real ground realities? Will `run the business` part of the organization not be resistant to change and create hindrances to implementation?

I regard these not as criticism but potential downsides to be aware of and managed. These are valid concerns because if the two parts of the organization are not aligned, the paradigm shift may not happen. The ‘Run the Business’ gets us all the revenue and are powerful stakeholders in the organization. Their acceptance is crucial to making key improvements, which if ignored would lead to stagnation. The Run segment is closely aligned with clients and is also a key source of ideas that can lead to disruptive innovation.

The solution therefore is to ensure there are enough interlocks between the Change and Run the business so that they are working in synchronization. HR plays a key role in facilitating and driving synchronization between the two.

How to Build an Organization which encourages Innovation?

Let me now talk about the kind of organization which needs to be designed which will foster innovation.

The two important factors to build an innovative organization are: leadership and culture. Innovation by design cannot accomplish any movement on a daily basis, it does not have a to-do list which can be struck off by the end of the day. The work rests in a futuristic idea or concept, which


has not been tried earlier and cannot have a proof of concept to begin with.

In the connected world today, analysts and social media track all the moves of organization minutely, the pressure to show top line and bottom line performance each quarter is immense. In such a world, a leadership perspective where money spent is not seen as cost but an investment, unfl inching leadership support for long term goals is required for innovation to fl ourish. At Wipro we have created an innovative investment process where all our leaders build seed money under a category named as Horizon 2 and Horizon 3, these cover projects where we experiment and look for innovation.

Leadership also is the key to build the kind of “culture” which fosters innovation.

Innovation is possible when people are allowed to experiment towards an end goal and experiments by nature can fail. Hence a culture which allows for failure is required for innovation. Innovative organizations have a culture which is adaptive and agile. They cultivate expertise, outside-in thinking and a global mindset. They reward experimentation, curiosity and collaboration. They enable innovation through networks, investment and tools.

The role of HR is to remove barriers to innovation and create the right culture, we need to design reward systems that recognize competencies and innovation behavior, nurture diversity of people, ideas as part of the work, evangelizing and role model ‘open’ communication which fosters diverse views.

It is persistence and application of a few simple principles that can build an innovation culture, my own learning on some of this is detailed below:

Keep it Simple: If innovation is the smartest solution and technology – it is

also fi nding simple answers. They will give you the highest value worth the complexity involved. At Wipro HR we were facing an issue with building communication channel from employee to organization, the traditional communication fl ows top down. We have an innovative practice today called the `Employee Advocacy Group` where we have given employees a position of power and a platform where they can directly work with leaders on organization processes, policies and other areas that matters to them.

Collaboration: Good ideas are not limited to a few and great ideas generally come when people collaborate to solve problems. This needs to be nurtured and in this I believe the power of Social media can be tapped into. At Wipro we have built powerful platforms for people to connect - we have leadership blogs, a social platform for people to connect with one another and very recently we have tried an innovative concept of social mentoring. We also have a `mobile app innovation group` which gets employees to collaborate and develop business solutions.

Appreciate: It is a long road peppered with many failures before an innovation starts to show results. In such a scenario where we need to keep people constantly motivated, appreciation does wonders. We need to have a method by which we don’t encourage only the outcome but also reward the thought. At Wipro we have come up with innovative ways to appreciate and laud the innovators, some examples are - Wipro Innovators Club, The New Idea Challenge Series, The Wipro Tech Challenge, Patent Club, etc.

Closing notes….

We live in a time where we are trying to adapt to the world around us while at the same time maintaining a competitive edge. How do we fi t in innovation in the


scheme of things? Well, it wouldn’t fi t in if we try to forcefully introduce it and will always remain alien. Because like a bitter pill forced down your throat, people will feel threatened and confused, unsure and faced with timelines and milestones, and will eventually & naturally gravitate

towards tried and tested ways of doing things. The most important variable and stepping stone to innovation is Leadership Support and Culture. HR is in an envious position, as it has the much-needed leadership support and investment to transform culture and processes.


Apollo Hospitals is the pioneer of integrated Health Care delivery in

India with a mission to bring in Health Care of International Standards to our country. From a humble beginning, today Apollo has more than 8500 beds across 51 Hospitals and 43,000 employees with a signifi cant presence at every touch-point of the Medical value chain. The legacy of touching and enriching lives stems from the pillars of the Apollo Philosophy – experience, excellence, expertise and research.

The value chain in the Health Care system has two important Segments – Public and Private Health Care Delivery segment. Further, it is divided into Health Care Service Delivery, Medical Equipments Pharmaceutical companies and Medical Insurance Segments. Hospitals are a part of Health Care Service Delivery Segment. The Hospital Medical Services (Doctors & Nurses), Paramedical Services, Support Services, Administrative & Outsourced

Services provide unidirectional customer aligned services. As an organization, hospitals are people dominant complex unit having highly educated Doctor Professionals at one end of the spectrum and less qualifi ed ward boys /girls and housekeepers on the other end of the spectrum. Though there is a tremendous heterogeneity in terms of demographics and culture within the work force in a hospital, the synergy and the cohesion among the various services becomes the key differentiator of making a hospital a great institution of repute and hope.

However, there are enough challenges to be combated by the Hospitals due to the following factors such as Quickening pace of change, Demanding Customers, High Shareholder expectations, Technology Revolution, Competition, Handling Gen Y Employees, Service mind-set Vs Professionalism and Building competency and talent for quality service delivery. The CEO and the Management team

INNOVATION AND HRIN APOLLO’S JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE

Dr. K PRABHAKAR

About the Author

Prabhakar has Graduated in Chemistry with a PG in Social Work (PM&IR) MSSW, BL, Dip (T&D), Dip (Lab & Adm Law) followed by a Ph.D on Nursing Professionals from University of Madras and a Certifi ed Lean Six Sigma Black Belt from Indian Statistical Institute.

HR Career started in Plantations and thereafter held different positions in Mines, Textiles, Engineering, and Banking and

associated with the Apollo Hospitals Group from 1986 in different capacities in Corporate HR. He is now the Chief Education & Skilling Offi cer of the Group and also is the CEO of Apollo MedSkills, a JV with NSDC.


have to develop a clear strategy to face the challenges to ensure viability and sustainability of the organization.

This article covers the changes brought at Apollo to align the onboarding and existing employees to be in line with the concept of customer centric experience building through innovative interventions. We have also covered HR’s contribution in managerial capability building and developing internal process improvement teams by deploying Lean Six Sigma methodology supported by the certifi cation process from the Indian Statistical Institute. Finally we have talked about Apollo’s role in creating professionals at different levels in the health care space by joining hands with National Skill Development Corporation.

Journey from Induction- Apollo Acculturation Program for imbibing excellence: (AAPIE)

The fi rst onboarding welcome experience for a new employee plays a very important role in creating positive employment experience / moments of truth. With this thought in mind we revisited this process which was in existence to ensure that the values of the organization are disseminated and imbibed in each individual. For this purpose Apollo decided to recreate the induction experience by setting up a program called Apollo Acculturation Program for Imbibing Excellence.

The organization did a dip stick check to understand if everyone demonstrated these values in the roles that they played. This exercise was followed

by gap analysis and the results were shared with the Management Committee. The need of the hour was to re-think, re-structure and re-work on the induction. The corporate HR team, Unit HR team, and all training managers did a brainstorming session and came out with a plan to re-structure the induction from 2 days of classroom orientation to an Experience building journey for 3 days to all new associates and called it “Apollo Acculturation Program for Imbibing excellence”.

Why the name AAPIE and how it is different from Induction?

A c c u l t u r a t i o n i s t h e p r o c e s s of understanding the culture of an organization and aligning your values to the value system of the Organization. At Apollo, Excellence has been the defi ning edge, clinically as well as in other outcomes. Hence it was critical that our new Associates quickly align to the goals of the organization. Customer expectation is changing fast and it is important that our onboarding journey needs to be in line with the concept of “Experience Building”.

APPIE has made a huge difference to the onboarding experience of new Associates resulting in the growth of our Tender Loving Care Index (Customers rating on courtesy and compassion). The Journey of APPIE does not end on day three but the same batch is invited by the COO on completion of 30 days to assess their comfort zone. Further on day 365 we have a reorientation for a day where all learning is re-emphasized.

APPIE won 2 awards - Asian Learning & Development Leadership Awards for Best Induction Program and SKOCH order of merit in the year 2013


Having talked about generic induction of onboarding new employees we thought it is important to discuss about the functional induction process of „Nursing Population‰ which is one of the key segments of the Hospital.

HOPE: (Hospital Orientation Program for Entrees)

Professional Nursing holds a unique place in the society. Nurses are the largest members in the health care service delivery process and they work in diverse settings and fi elds as frontline providers of quality nursing care. While most nurses work in acute-care settings/wards in hospitals, nurses’ expertise and skills extend well beyond the same and nursing continues to be an indispensable service to the public.

Nursing care is provided for people with widely diverse health and sick care needs in multiple contexts worldwide. The knowledge and competence to meet such a wide variety of care needs may be daunting for the student starting a program of study to become a registered nurse. Nursing program is designed to allow knowledge and practice experience to be accumulated and assimilated by the nursing student within the 3 or 4 year course period. However, learning is life long, and the journey of learning through a Pre-Registration Nursing Program is only the beginning.

Hence, at Apollo, the Nursing orientation program is designed to mould Novice Nurses to full-fl edged Apollo Nurses. An Apollo nurse is powered with intellect, driven by values, crafted with skills, translated into a world of action by providing personalized care to the patients. It is necessary for an institution to train new nurses, according to the hospital policies, protocols & procedures.

At Apollo a specifi c program has been designed called “Hospital Orientation Program for Entrees” (HOPE), to align nurses to patient centric functional requirements. HOPE classes include 4 days of Orientation, 6 days of functional training, and 21 days of Preceptorship period in which the Nurse Director, Chief Nurse Educator, Clinical Educators and Clinical Instructors will train the candidates. Pretest is conducted before the start of the HOPE classes which includes written and skill assessment and a Post Preceptorship exam after 31 days.

PEACE: (Preceptee Education and Competency Evaluation)

The beginning of a nurse’s career can be a challenging time and initial experiences can be pivotal. To ensure the best possible start for newly qualifi ed nurses and to maximize the training investment, a Quality Preceptorship Program is essential.

Preceptorship should be viewed as a structured transition phase that allows newly registered nurses to develop their confi dence and apply their knowledge from academic studies and placements. Having expert support, with protected time gives a foundation for lifelong learning and allows nurses to provide effective care more quickly.

At Apollo Hospitals, the nurses are in the Preceptorship Program for 21 days after their HOPE Program. Preceptors are identified from each ward and the Preceptee’s will be assigned to each Preceptor in respective area. The Preceptors and the Preceptees will be posted in the same shift for knowledge and skill enhancement. Post evaluation of the Preceptees is carried after this program to


evaluate the nurse’s knowledge and skill using a structured Questionnaire and skill checklist.

PROCESS:

Recruitment and Deployment

General Induction by HR

Nursing Induction – HOPE (Hospital Orientation Program for Entrees)

Deployed for wards Deployed for CCU and OT

Area Specifi c HOPE

Preceptorship Program (Preceptee Education and Competency Evaluation

– PEACE)

Post Preceptorship competency evaluation

Competent Not competent

Posted in Respective

areas

Re training and

Evaluation

KNOWLEDGE TOOL

1. The tool used for the study was a structured questionnaire.

2. The questions were based on the policies, procedures & protocols of Apollo Hospitals.

3. Totally 50 multiple choice questions and each question carried 1 mark

4. No negative marks were given.

5. Skill Check list

SKILL TOOL:

1. A checklist has been used for assessing the skills

2. It is assessed in 2 situations, before & after Preceptorship training period.

3. The major components in the checklist included: JCI mandates, basic nursing procedures like vitals, medication administration, advanced nursing procedures like blood transfusion, assisting doctors in invasive procedures and infection control practices.

Results revealed that there was good improvement in level of knowledge and skill required to work at Apollo Hospitals, Chennai among the novice nurses after attending the HOPE & PEACE session.

Thus after completion of one month orientation program, our Nurses were able to take care of patients with confi dence and the major nursing error that leads to sentinel events has been Nil. Ongoing Nursing education and training is also happening everyday for the knowledge and skill enhancement. Periodical competency evaluation on both knowledge and skill is carried out to ensure only competent nurses are on the fl oor to take care of the patients to deliver quality care. The above initiatives are a part of continuous nursing education at Apollo Hospitals.

Enhancing Managerial Talent at Apollo through strategic Alliance with XLRI

The need for professionally trained Hospital Managers is felt by the Indian Hospitals very strongly. This is largely due to growing recognition that performance levels of hospitals in various managerial and functional areas are falling short of standards that are known to be achievable. The profi les coming out of the 2nd /


3rd tier Institutions do not match with the Graduates coming out of premier Business Schools of the country. Taking into consideration the attrition and the need for professional talent to take care of the expansion plans at Apollo, the Group partnered with XLRI for building the Internal Managerial Talent.

Apollo’s 75 Practicing Managers across 6 Group Hospitals (Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore and Madurai) were selected through an internal screening process for a one year General Management Program with XLRI in a virtual learning environment. The program was delivered from the studios of XLRI campus by the Professors. To make the program cost effective XLRI studios got connected to the Apollo Bridge and the 6 Hospitals were linked to the bridge to enable the Managers take part in the learning process. The program was further supported by contact classes at the XLRI premises.

The program was on a co-pay basis at reduced cost due to utilization of our internal resources in Tele-networking. 30% of the successful candidates progressed in their career ladder through vertical and horizontal movement across the Group.

HR’s contribution towards building the culture of Continual Improvement at Apollo:

In today’s compet i t ive business environment, organizations depend on the responsiveness and continual improvement necessary to help them to be successful in their business. Exceptional quality will be our competitive market differentiator. In the Health Care Industry, quality of care is more than a concept. It has become essential to patient well-being and fi nancial survival.

Lean Thinking and Six Sigma are two

process innovation approaches that are currently popular in industry. Both provide a systematic approach to facilitate incremental process innovations. Lean Six Sigma is characterized by its customer-driven approach, emphasis on decision making based on careful analysis of quantitative data, and a priority on cost reduction and quality improvement.

Our vision at Apollo in the Lean Six Sigma journey is to create 50 Black Belts; 500 Green Belts and 5000 Yellow Belts by end of 2015. Our driving force for Lean Six Sigma:

Executive Director CEOs/ Unit Head / Senior Management

Patients Clinicians Surgeons/ Consultants

Quality/ Audit Process Owners LSS Community Costing Team

Apollo Hospitals Lean Six Sigma Program includes all levels in the Hierarchy and provides for a well defi ned Deployment framework. The framework helps in identifying training needs, defi nes roles and responsibility and lists down expected contribution at every level.

As a part of our journey in achieving excellence at Apollo, we have trained 29


Black Belts, 276 GBs and 1790 YBs, since its inception in the year 2008. Examination and Certifi cation is handled by Indian Statistical Institute. Today at Apollo we have 10 Black Belt Projects, 180 Green Belt Projects on three counts – Process improvement, Enhancing Quality through error reduction and Cost Saving Projects.

Development of Health Care Human Resources – A JV with NSDC

In order to contribute to the national vision in the Health Care Sector, Apollo Hospitals Group has taken the initiative of commencing 60 Skill Development Centers across the country by setting up Apollo MedSkills Limited and signing a Joint Venture Agreement with NSDC to further the cause the Nation with respect to Skilling and Up Skilling Indian youth to make them employable. Apollo MedSkills, the skilling arm of the Group is committed to developing talent in the healthcare space.

The project includes a comprehensive and unique training program that combines class room training, simulation, functional labs and fieldwork based methodology to introduce the selected candidates to the functions of a hospital and provide them necessary skill-sets which eventually helps them in fi nding

jobs in its hospitals and other healthcare centers.

The courses in the academy is based on the premise that a detailed, practical, skill-oriented technical and vocational training program for doctors, nurses, technicians and support staff will provide a strong career foundation and open up several employment opportunities for the underprivileged youth to succeed in today’s environment. The trained individuals will be certifi ed by Universities / Board / Health Care Sector Skill Council of NSDC.

The enumerated initiatives have given us a good learning insight about the transformation of mindset of people in bringing out the desired customer based outcomes. In terms of this strategy, the broader framework of capturing the voice of customer and aligning our people capability requirement helped us achieve the desired results. Participation in the accreditation/certifi cation process such as JCIA, NABH, NABL, CII Business Excellence award helped Apollo to fi ne tune the processes to enable the work force align with the concept of “positive experience building” to our customers apart from creating a source for healthcare professional talent as a part of the national agenda.

Apollo’s motto is to touch a billion lives and the journey continues…


About the Author

Akash Bhatia is the Co-founder & CEO of Infi nite Analytics. Akash graduated from MIT Sloan in June 2012. Prior to MIT Sloan, Akash is the co-founder of India’s fi rst and largest ticketing company, Kyazoonga. Prior to Kyazoonga, Akash was an engineer with Oracle/PeopleSoft in Silicon Valley. He has completed his B.E from College of Engineering, Pune, M.S from University of Cincinnati and an MBA from MIT Sloan.

SOCIAL ANALYTICS IN HRAKASH BHATIA

Big Data Analytics is everywhere today. In the fi elds of Finance, Insurance,

Retail and Marketing, predictive analytics has taken huge steps ahead, but in the case of Human

Resource Management, one doesn’t hear of as many companies adopting big data analytics.

For years, companies have been conducting exit interviews, and most of the times, the top most reason for quitting is the want for better compensation – compensation that will make them happier. But in most cases, even when the employees are given a retention bump in their compensation, they leave shortly thereafter. Their period of engagement with the company is not exactly determined by the compensation they receive. Then what exactly might be the factors that drive/motivate such employees?

Building some models based on exit interviews/annual performance reviews wouldn’t really cut it. Most of these surveys are really biased, and eventually, your results will only be as good as the data you have.

Predictive analytics will allow HR to get deeper insight and knowledge, and really precognition about the future of the organization that they could use to drive a favorable outcome.

Many of us have seen the movie “Moneyball”. It is an account of the Oakland A’s baseball team in the 2002 season and their manager, Billy Beane’s attempt to assemble a competitive team, despite a lack of funds. He, along with his assistant, Peter Brand, adopt a sophisticated predictive analytics to crunch data from millions of sources, pitches, games and other variables to create a team of undervalued players with specifi c skills that went on to win the World Series. (Of course, predictive analytics have become a mainstay in team sports these days – but it got a fi llip from the Oakland A’s).

In “Strength in Numbers”, Erik Brynjolfsson (an advisor to Infi nite Analytics), talks about how data driven decisions increase the bottom-line of large companies by almost 5-6% over their competitors.

Coming back to your organization, what if HR could identify that a certain employee


getting a salary on par with others in similar position is highly likely to quit, and what if they could understand the factors that might be motivating him/her to do so?

What if HR had the ability to understand what steps need to be taken to create a high performance team of equally motivated employees, each getting the kind of benefi ts that would drive them forward?

What if HR had a tool that gave them a 360-degree view of candidates for a particular position? Not just what they can see on a the resume or the LinkedIn profi le, but something that gave them a sense of not just the professional information, but what kind of activities does the candidate get involved in, what kind of networks is s/he a part of, how many people in the candidate’s network work for a competitor fi rm, and so on and so forth. After all, an eventual employee’s performance is not just based on her/his experience, and the sooner HR understands the factors that motivate the employee, the better they will be able to reduce attrition in employees.

It’s not a pipe dream anymore!

To quote an oft-repeated line that you will fi nd when you Google ‘big data”, - 90% of the world’s data today has been generated in the last two years. A combination of NLP, Machine Learning, Semantic Technologies and Predictive Analytics on this “Big Data” can provide insights that have, until now, been the forte of soothsayers and clairvoyants.

The Internet has a knack of capturing every keystroke, every click and every activity of a user, for perpetuity. Whether one cleans up the cookies after visiting a site, or hides behind a VPN, some information is always captured by websites who wish to know more about the user. Besides this, more and more people also share a lot of information about themselves on different social networks. A typical breakdown of information is as follows:

Facebook – What one does on a daily basis, the people one interacts with whether friends or acquaintances, the kind of TV shows one watches, the music one listens to, and the places one visits, among other things.

Linkedin – One’s professional information, education information, professional groups, professional networks, and other information that one would like to mention on their resumes/CVs.

Twitter – What one is thinking at the very instant!

Now consider this information about this user being combined into a 360 degree view of the user – the information from Facebook + the information from Linkedin + the information from Twitter. Together, this information is the most powerful dataset about a user/candidate. But this deluge of data about the user can be really overwhelming. On an average, there is at least 5GB of data about one user in this 360 degree view. The number of data points to look through would only drive an HR professional crazy. Besides, data without insights is nothing. What you need to do is use this data to get insights into the user.

There is a lot of information and sentiment behind people’s posts on Facebook and tweets on twitter. Using NLP (Natural Language Processing) and Machine Learning, one can break down these into their sentiment, the what, when, how and why of the user’s post. Using Semantic technologies, one can then understand more intelligently about both the structured and unstructured data about the user. For e.g.: If a user posts “I love cricket”, is s/he talking about the game of cricket or is s/he talking about the insect, cricket. Getting this part right is only part of the job. Semantic technologies can also be used to understand relationships between a user’s interests and products, users and brands, products and products


and even users and users. What this means, for example, is that Semantic Technologies can help understand if a user likes Sachin Tendulkar, likes to drink Pepsi, watches “How I Met Your Mother”, wears a certain kind (or brand) of clothes because of his crush on a Bollywood Star and likes to hang out with his friend on weekends.

So from just getting data about a user, one can now go down to understanding what is it that drives/motivates a user.

Predictive analytics can then build upon this rich understanding of the user and other users to predict a variety of things about the user and more specifi c to HR - what job is a user looking for, is the user looking for a new job or is s/he content with the current one, Is the user disgruntled, are there any life events that might affect the user’s performance at work, and so on and so forth.

Thus, predictive analytics based on Social Data, or Social Analytics have the ability to provide HR with a crystal ball into their employees/potential employees.

The genesis of Infi nite Analytics lies in a class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The inventor of the World Wide Web – Sir Tim Berners-Lee instructs a class on Linked Data Ventures at the MIT CSAIL (Computer Science and Artifi cial Intelligence Lab). Essentially, we create a Social Genome of a user across Social Networks. Just as the human genome tells us everything about the biological person, the social genome, our patent-pending technology, disambiguates a user from across social networks, so user A on Facebook is the same user A on Linkedin and is the same user A on Twitter. We do this with a relatively high degree of accuracy. This is the most critical piece, as any mess up here would completely screw up the social genome. Once the merged profi le is created, our proprietary NLP and machine learning algorithms begin

dissecting a user’s genome to identify various aspects of the user, patterns in the user’s behavior and, of course, understand the user’s structured and unstructured data. As mentioned earlier, being able to understand that the user likes the game of cricket and not the insect is something that our algorithms are very accurate about. We then use proprietary Semantic technologies to understand the relationships between user’s interests, likes, different products as well as to get a understanding of any other aspect of the user that might have remained unexplained. Once this is completed, our predictive analytics take over and predict user actions and attributes. Some of them are given below:

1. Intent

2. Spending Potential

3. Brand affi nities

4. Events likely to attend

5. Infl uence

6. Competition

7. Brand Advocacy

8. Interests

9. And many others

While we do not strategize for our clients, we provide them with the ammunition they will need to take the right decisions. To provide an instance, for one of our clients, we provide them with the following capabilities:

1. Identify target segments

2. Quantitatively estimate how certain online behaviors (e.g. being a fan of Deepika Padukone or of Mumbai Indians) translates into other behaviors, such as also liking other products/brands

3. Identify fans and detractors of client’s products

4. Identify what motivates fans of


competitors and identify messaging that could convert them to the client’s product

5. Identify the infl uence of popular culture on the target audience

6. Identify real-time clusters of client product/competitor fans

7. Identify groups with similar traits

8. Use predictive analytics to predict

future behavior – knowing that a user does not engage with a brand will allow client to allocate their resources somewhere else where there might be a bigger impact

We also believe that a lot of these insights can be further tuned to provide HR with insights that they would need, specifi c for their fi rms, much in the way I had written about, above in this article.


According to Wiki: A resource is a source or supply from which benefi t

is produced.

Looking at the term, Human Resources, from this perspective, it means a human (source or supply) produces a benefi t. This term was coined during the industrial age when producing a product required a combination of several resources, one of which was human labor. Industrial and manufacturing jobs made up 80%+ of all jobs. HR existed to keep an ample supply of humans, in-stock. But, the need wasn’t really about the human, it was about the hands of the human. Resources running low? No problem, just hire a few more hands. The employee needed the employer more than the other

way around. All power clearly resided in the employer. That was then, but is it now?

The latest engagement data shows more and more employees around the world and across industries becoming increasingly disenchanted with their work. More than two thirds of employees going to work are either not engaged or disengaged. This means they are physically showing up for work, leaving their head, heart and soul elsewhere. This is a potentially dangerous situation for all stakeholders. Employees are frustrated, customers have become switchers, and when these ‘human supplies’ become compromised and unreliable the consequences are widespread.

IS IT TIME TO REPLACE HUMAN RESOURCES WITH PEOPLE ENERGY?

CURT COFFMAN and ASHISH AMBASTA

About the Authors

Curt W. Coffman, MBA, is Senior Partner, Chief Science Offi cer. A New York Times Bestselling Author, researcher, business scientist, consultant to Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 organizations and Executive Fellow at the Daniels School of Business (University of Denver), Curt Coffman has invested 30+ years in the science of high performance cultures.

Ashish is a Practice Head for Employee Engagement at PB and is a seasoned professional having in-depth exposure in both operational and strategic business positions. He has more than a decade’s experience of managing business, teams and profi tability of various SBU’s. In his last stint at Gallup India, Ashish has worked with several leading organizations around leveraging “people” element of business and was responsible for the largest client relationship that Gallup had in India.


Changing Context:

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change! One of the issues, which has led to this situation, is our inability to see that the world has changed and with this the context of the employment has also changed:

Dimension Earlier Time Now

Reason for working Money Meaning

Driver for staying Pension Purpose

Place of work Office Anywhere

Time of work 9-5 Anytime

Flow of in-formation

Senior to Junior With Everyone

Length of employ-ment

LifetimeALFNJ [Always looking for next Job]

Teams Present/Physical Virtual

Choices for employees Limited Many

Role of HR Supply Drive Business

While the employment context has changed, we are still managing our people using practices fi rmly planted in the past. It’s like you are trying to drive a Porsche with pair of rock solid bullocks and wondering why it’s not moving fast? You might have world’s best systems, process and technology to drive people initiatives in the organization but if it doesn’t meet the needs of current and future generations, it may not be of any use. Unfortunately, most organizations have not realigned their people practices to meet the wants of this changed scenario and this in turn may be partly responsible for the abysmal employee experience.

People Energy:

With some recent estimates pegging industrial jobs at below 20% of the total job role pie, majority of the job roles available today are knowledge-based. Consequently, the resource or supply needed to create the desired benefi t no longer lies in the hands, but in what lies between the ears of the person. The challenge for the organizations now is - how to maintain an ample supply of human intelligence, ideas and instincts to create desired benefi ts for the business?

Some of the world’s greatest organizations have found an answer to this challenge by focusing on the energy of the individual and how that is directed and used in organizationally productive ways. They start by selecting the right talent, but then extend it to fi nding the right fi t which transforms the talent into talented and have great managers who understand that their #1 job is to help every person reach their highest level of success. They consciously build on the understanding that the success of their business lies in the heads and hearts of people within. Dawning of this new reality can either strike terror in the hearts of leaders, or can be seen as an opportunity to build real value and growth. And most progressive of the lot (of leaders) embrace this reality and translate what may appear as a signifi cant headache to some into a source of distinct and sustainable competitive advantage.

People Energy is either used or wasted, it cannot be stored:

We have met several organizations which keep scratching their head on how do they ‘engage’ rather than really thinking about how do they capture and release the energies of people coming to work in a manner which impacts everyone involved.

Every employee brings a certain amount of energy to work. Depending on the


work environment and other factors, either this energy is utilized in good/innovative work or it dissipates into politics and other negative activities. Great organizations constantly think about how the energy of an individual needs to be drawn out for generating maximum value for the organization and the individual in question. Based on our multi-year, multi-country research, we at PB Coffman have been able to broadly segment employees into three categories depending on their emotional connect, ability to provide superior results and propensity to dispense energy in organizationally productive ways:

• Actively Engaged

• Passengers

• Actively Disengaged

Our Research suggests that while Passengers utilize 65% of their total available energy, actively Engaged employees are able to use 82 percent of their talent and abilities at work. In contrast, Actively Disengaged are functioning at only 27% of their capacity.

Let’s consider the ramification of this variation from a project management perspective, where our strategies refl ect some basic assumptions like treating people’s energies in terms of FTEs [Full time Equivalents]:

A team of 100 people working 40 hours a week is 4000 staff hours. If on average only 42 are ‘actively engaged’, 23 are passengers and 35 are actively disengaged, the amount of energy available to the organization is:

FTEs 100 People

40 Hrs/Wk

Ca-pacity

= 4000 Staff

hoursActively Engaged 42 40 @ .82 1378

Passengers 23 40 @ .65 598

Actively Disen-gaged

35 40 @ .27 378

Productive Energy

2354 Staff

hours

The question is why we are wasting so much of ‘People Energy’ and what is the impact of this wasted energy?

Research comparing planned budgets, benefits and timelines against actual results for 1471 IT projects, reported in HBR, revealed an average cost overrun of 27 percent. Even signifi cantly one in six projects incurred [on average] a whopping cost overrun of 200% that is sad and bad for companies. And if you look closely this could have been avoided. There is a way in which we can bring the extra energy on the table and utilize the same for productive outcomes.

Our studies into world’s best organizations have brought out some key themes where you manage this energy into abundance. Some of them are:

1. Hiring for individual’s purpose and assessing alignment with what the organization stands for: Best organizations are very careful about who they let in. They are very methodical about the recruitment process and why not, this step determines what type of culture you are going to create in your organization. Mindvalley (http://www.mindvalley.com) a global brand and an online resource company asks prospective employees to upload a video on YouTube explaining their purpose in life, why they should be hired at Mindvalley and how they intend to contribute once in. And once uploaded the videos with maximum likes are the ones which get noticed by the recruiters at Mindvalley while at the same time creating visibility for the individual in question.


This exercise gives Mindvalley an insight into the person’s source of energy and inspiration- his/her deep driving desire. Higher is the extent of congruence between what the individual is passionate about and what the organization stands for, higher is the extent of energy expanded in organizationally productive ways and personal fulfi llment experienced by the individual on an ongoing basis.

Values Create Value: Every organization has crafted a set of values and you will see them being prominently displayed on the walls and as part of corporate logo. However, the important thing is not the prominence or the beauty of the display but whether these values are vivid, generate emotions, are personal to the members of the organization and do they create unique responses on the ground that impacts an individual’s energy positively? Great organizational cultures have specific and enduring values that when lived on a day-to-day basis become a source of organizational folklore.

The values that make an organization truly excellent are about 80 percent generic and 20 percent specifi c. Generic values are CHAIRs (Customer Focused, Honesty, Accountability, Integrity and Respect), the basics that are important, but don’t distinguish or energize. Competitive advantage lies in the 20 percent that slam-dunks the meaning of the organization creates incredible desire to belong. Sticky values are edgy, i.e. “paranoid collaboration, fun and a little bit weird, bad news fast, hardworking and fearless” to name a few.

2. Providing Worlds best ‘GO-TOs’: In the industrial age, information, reverence and decision making power was distributed to only a select few.

This made them very important in the organizational scheme of things. This created a code of behavior for those who reported into them. There were unspoken rules - adoration is welcomed but there will be consequences for being too direct. Maybe this is the genesis of subordinate?

Now with the advent of internet and web, information is no longer a prerogative of a select few, in fact, people around you may have much more information at their disposal than what you may have accumulated over the years. Since the gap in access to information has diminished, the onus on go-to’s or manager’s has increased to continuously think of ways to add value to their junior team members. Young employees are looking for managers who can unclutter their minds and put them situations and positions that allow them to fully leverage their talents and abilities and be their best. . The era of the prescriptive manager who only focused on the do’s and don’ts of the job is gradually getting eclipsed by the need for a “Coach Manager”. This is the manager who asks relevant questions, helps people unleash their full potential and supports them when things get tough.

One of the leading technology company in Bangalore, India has made an attempt towards enabling such a change. The organizational structure enables this kind of a managerial behaviour by mandating each people manager to play the role of a Coach for his/her team. And this is not only enforced structurally but also enabled behaviorally through active knowledge, skill and behavioral support to managers to play this role most effectively.

3. Keep the Mission Vivid: Employees don’t want to arrive, work and then go back home. They yearn to know how


their work is contributing to the larger purpose of the organization. They really want to know how their work is creating value for stakeholders. If they don’t have a ‘line of sight’ from themselves to the impact they are creating, they tend to get disconnected and look for something that does provide meaning. A very critical driver of an employee’s association, longevity and productivity in an organizational context is its purpose.

Aravind Eye Care System runs a very successful chain of Eye Hospitals and Clinics in Southern Part of India. This organization was founded in 1976 by Dr. G. Venkataswamy with a simple yet compelling mission- “To Eliminate Needless Blindness”. This mission has remained pivotal in every aspect of running and growing Aravind Eye Care System from a 11 bed facility to what is now regarded as one of the world’s largest facilities in eye care. Every job right from the bus driver who drives patients to the nearest Aravind facility for free treatment to the nursing staff who takes care of these patients has a clear sight of how their contributions are inspired by and contributing to furthering this vivid mission of the organization.

4. Take Interest in People and They Will Take Interest in You: Great organizations love their people and their people love them back. They value real relationships and know that the quality of relationships will be what leads success. There is an effort to craft roles around people versus fi tting people into jobs. Decisions get made close to the action and strong relationships drive great decisions. Rules are never allowed to replace great choices. Employees are ALL-IN and can’t wait to come to work.

One of the leading non-banking fi nancial services provider based out of Mumbai in India has taken this philosophy of taking interest and loving your people as a basis for allowing people to architect their workday as per their needs. The organization realized that employees at this organization valued a certain degree of fl exibility in their work schedules. Consequently, employees were encouraged to consult and work out their time schedules in a way which most suited their individual needs. They were expected to be available in offi ce for team meetings and other activities which required their physical presence and beyond these interactions which required a mandatory face to face interface; employees were free to decide how their daily work timings and schedule looked like.

5. Allow Pursuit of Inclination: Some of world’s most innovative companies breed innovation by allowing their people to chase their passions. An opportunity to live one’s passion and/or interests at work not only benefi ts the individual it also encourages positive emotions which in turn fuel effective utilization of people’s energy at work. 3M encourages its employees to spend 15 percent of their time to follow their instincts and pursue something that creates opportunity for them and the company. Google also follows the same rule with innovation jam and opportunity for individuals and teams to pursue projects which they feel strongly about. Just because you are paid to be working does not mean that you need to leave your interests and passions at home. In fact such organizations create platforms for people to fuel their passions and interests and in turn employees feel inspired to exhibit extra role behaviors and unleash their full potential for organizational good.


An interesting finding from our research suggests that the most engaged employees have the positive view of work-life balance. This does not necessarily mean that they are not occupied enough or they are engaged because they have little or no pressure to meet deadlines. What this essentially means is that an opportunity to fully invest your energy at work inspires greater meaningfulness and in turn positively impacts your overall wellbeing at work. The notion of a 50-50 work-life balance is gradually becoming archaic and organizations are looking for ways to minimize the divide that segregates work and life for individuals. Life does not happen to be outside of work, it can be at work too!

The difference between an also ran and a world class organization lies in its ability to maximize on every bit of people energy available. They focus on consciously creating a work environment or a culture that encourages people to fully expand their energy. Your competitors may be able to copy your strategies, replicate your process and get the latest technology that you thought would set you apart but it’s the people and their energy that they cannot replicate. So, it will be your people and their productive energies which may determine whether you pip your competition to the post or fall by the way side. After all we are in the People Business!.


About the Author

Gargi Banerji is a founding member of the NGO Pragya, which carries out development projects in the Himalayas and in Sub-Saharan Africa. She is an XLRI-alumnus, with 25+ years of experience straddling the corporate and development sectors. Since 1995, Gargi has directed Pragya’s programming, shaping it into a development organisation of repute (winner of Whitley Award for Conservation, Energy Globe Award for renewable energy, STARS Impact Award for education). Her work has been

recognised with the MSDS Award for Social Entrepreneurs and NHRDN citation.

Sunil Pillai is also a founding member of the NGO Pragya, and an XLRI-alumnus with 25+ years of experience across industry and the development sector. Sunil has worked in Marketing & Promotion functions in industry, and as a Management Consultant with TCS. In Pragya, he directs the HR & Communication functions and guides Stakeholder relations, and his contribution to the sector has been commended by NHRDN. He also plays a key role in managing Pragya Solutions, providing consultancy services to state & non-state actors in development.

INCLUSIVE HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT –A HRD TRAJECTORY FOR DEVELOPMENT OF

DISADVANTAGED GROUPSGARGI BANERJI and SUNIL PILLAI

The critical difference between HRD at an organizational level and that at a societal level is how one perceives the human being: as a resource-contributor or as a member-participant.

The human being in an organization with a clearly enunciated economic purpose, is a resource to be managed as a contributor. In a society, an ecosystem approach however needs to be adopted, the human being viewed as a member with equal rights, with the potential of being a productive participant, and the society and its leaders carrying the responsibility of ensuring that every member-participant has equity in opportunities and is wholly enabled

to take advantage of these, thereby contributing to his/her own well-being as well as the nation’s. HRD for societies needs to display an inclusive orientation, and use a ‘selective support and development’ approach, with a bias towards the disadvantaged, and deliver

muti-level interventions aimed at enabling, developing and empowering them.


1. Stretching the Boundaries in HRD:

The dominant focus of traditional HRD has been on the ‘organisation’, with

the key objective being that of maximising the economic benefi t to the organization while potentiating the individual’s ‘resource’ value, the major levers being those of selection, development, and performance management. However, the basic philosophy of HRD of investing in people and their environment, for shared gains, makes it eminently suited to a broader application and utility, to address larger, critical development issues at a societal level as well, with certain adaptations to suit societal objectives, drawing on disciplines in the development domain that are complementary. Along with developmental benefi ts, this would have deeper and more comprehensive impacts on the economic sub-system as well, and the multiple institutions of this sub-system, viz industries, organizations, and workforce performance.

This broader defi nition of HRD, as a subset of ‘human development’, fi nds a refl ection in national-level HRD policies/strategies, which have also typically followed the human capital theory, and focused on education, training, workforce/labour management, demonstrating a neglect of those development aspects that are less directly connected to the economic purpose. For instance, the NHRD policy in India is largely to do with education, training and culture, while that of Singapore includes manpower planning and development, education and lifelong learning, and the work environment. Thus McLean (2006), acknowledging the role NHRD could play to address developmental issues in nations, exhorted HRD researchers to focus on expanding the scope of HRD to include unaddressed, core developmental issues, and a range of other authors (Garavan et.al., 2004) have also supported

the need for a more comprehensive and multi-level approach. A holistic and multi-dimensional perspective is gradually making its appearance in NHRD, with particular strategies/policies aligned to the specifi c national context and contributing to the development goals (Millennium Development Goals) on which the nation is off-track, towards enhancing the overall development status of the nation and quality of life, as well as productivity of its citizens.

Sustainable development remains a goal-unreached in most societies, partly due to inequities in development that leave specifi c population sub-sets disadvantaged, marginalised, and neglected. The factors of disadvantage could do with socio-economic characteristics, including socio-cultural difference from mainstream populations (caste, ethnic group, tribe, religion), lower economic strata and lack of access to factors/tools of development, and place characteristics, ie, geographical distance from or peripherality in relation to locations of power and/or urban centers (remote, rural, border areas). Two key gaps that add to such disadvantage are those of infrastructural and social capital. Concepts and methods of HRD have much to contribute to the building of social capital in particular, which would have the potential of transformative development for the disadvantaged groups.

The missing principle in HRD at all levels of its application however, particularly in ‘traditional HRD’, i.e. that applied to organisations, is the philosophy of ‘inclusion’ of the disadvantaged. Organisations aiming for the economic goal, would only go so far in developing their human resources, and prefer to choose the option of weeding out the less competent, clearly evaluating investments on HRD against the prospective returns. At a societal level however, as Amartya Sen has cautioned, development is not


wealth-accumulation alone, but rather the expansion of an individual’s entitlements and capacities, and include political, social, legal and infrastructural aspects, apart from the economic. The ‘selective breeding and weeding’ approach of traditional HRD when adopted at a societal level would lead to leaving out the disadvantaged, violating their rights and increasing the development-divide, and potentially, vulnerability to manipulation by destructive forces. HRD for societies, needs to adopt an ecosystem perspective and a development-centered approach, with an emphasis on the rights and development of the disadvantaged.

2. Building Inclusion into HRD:

We therefore call for an inclusive HRD in its application at the societal level, with a bias for disadvantaged groups. This would necessitate a more holistic perspective with a multi-dimensional intervention-mix, since such disadvantage is typically

accompanied by severe poverty and infrastructural gaps, which are hurdles to absorption and utilisation of traditional HRD inputs, as well as a rights and empowerment-based approach, for the building up of social capital while ensuring broader development principles and aims.

We present here a model for HRD for disadvantaged societies/groups- a trajectory for a multi-dimensional development of the disadvantaged, contr ibut ing to susta inable and inclusive societal development. The model incorporates learning culled from experiences of PRAGYA (a not-for-profi t development organisation) in working with remote, disadvantaged populations in Asia and Africa, who are the last-mile and least-developed communities in these regions. It also draws heavily on concepts of individual development, human development, human and social capital, leadership and organizational learning, organization development and culture building. While particularly useful for HRD in its broader dimension, the model also holds suggestions for managing a more organic organization change and development process in low-performing units/divisions in organizations.

Broadly: the Trajectory begins at a Development Platform, which requires the creating of an environment supportive of development and human rights; 3 Spirals

PRAGYA, a not-for-profi t development organisation, works for the appropriate development of vulnerable communities and sensitive ecosystems of the world. Pragya programs reach the benefi ts of development to the most remote and least developed regions, delivering an array of services to isolated and underserved communities, and building their capacity to help themselves. The organization was set up in 1995 with a concern for last-mile communities, and is today serving tribal communities and ethnic minorities that are neglected and marginalized in the development process, in India, Nepal and Kenya. These communities suffer from high levels of poverty, have much lower access to education, healthcare and infrastructure, are constrained in terms of opportunities, and hence continually lose pace with other more rapidly developing parts/groups.


of Development originate from this base, three sets of development actions aimed at enabling and empowering the people through progressive interventions, the fi rst aimed at Capability Building in individuals and groups, the second aimed at Stake Building in communities, and the third aimed at Citizenship Building to enable the specifi c group to take its place in the larger society.

3. The Development Platform:

The fundamental entitlements of a citizen from his/her country and government, are pre-requisites for development, in that only when the people are confi dent of accessing their rights, are they able to absorb and utilise development inputs. This necessitates upon the local government and development actors to ensure human rights and create an environment for HRD.

The process needs to begin with State commitment and associated development action to provide for the basic needs and fundamental rights of the population. Critically important is the delivery and reach of welfare services such as education and health, and the availability of related infrastructure (schools, hospitals); it must be noted, that services and infrastructure for disadvantaged, last-mile communities, are frequently hindered by issues of restricted physical or social access, such as caste or ethnic group based discrimination, and/or poor access conditions for remote, hilly, forested or border areas. Effective service delivery would necessitate dealing with these hurdles as well, and adopting a rights-based approach to welfare services and infrastructure. The institutional framework and environment for equitable access to rights (laws, justice), must be in place, with necessary legal provisions, as well as the government structures, courts and legal procedures for redressal. Governance structures and processes must emphasize and institutionalize ‘inclusion’,

ensuring this in programs and policies, while harnessing communication and media to promote such attitudes, and deal with prejudice, barriers and discrimination of all kinds. Policy and legal support might need to incorporate measures for positive discrimination as well, in the short-term, towards bridging the development divide.

Disadvantaged populations also have higher levels of vulnerability and exposure to risks. Poverty and discrimination leave them socially and economically vulnerable, which also implies higher exposure levels to disasters and diverse threats. They tend to be on the fringe of mainstream society and experience lower coverage by institutions of protection, such as police, courts, disaster management services, and since poverty and hunger also impacts the people on the margins, their primary concern is to do with survival, rather than development. State efforts need to be focused on providing these groups with a reasonable sense of security regarding their basic needs, viz food and water and access to resources, livelihood security and freedom from hunger and poverty, and a sense of safety and protection from threats to life. Material support to the most disadvantaged, along with special legal protection and availability of safety-nets, would contribute to the minimum sense of security needed for development to take place.

4. The 3 Spirals of Development:

With an assured basic minimum of equity and security in place for disadvantaged groups, an effective process of change and development can be initiated. The Trajectory would comprise a simultaneous focus on 3 levels of HRD for disadvantaged groups: individuals and groups, with a focus on the human and economic aspects of development; communities, with a focus on socio-cultural aspects; and larger society, with a focus on the


political aspects. It must be noted that the latter levels have a longer gestation period and need a longer period of support to reach the threshold level of development, and achieve self-propelled growth and sustainability.

Spiral 1: Capability building

Building the capacity of the disadvantaged would have the objective of enabling them to share equal space in development and progress. With this perspective, HRD interventions need to be aimed at potentiating individuals and groups, and thereby the human capital of the area. This builds holistic capability - towards creating the right attitudinal base, developing necessary knowledge and skills, and facilitates the productive use of the individual and group capacity.

a] Information, education and training: Continuing under-development, neglect and exclusion of disadvantaged groups, and the visible development divide from the more privileged and mainstream populations. This leads to psychological scars, including a sense of helplessness and apathy. The fi rst steps therefore would be to foster an attitudinal change, overcoming this development apathy and confi dence gap, and creating the psychological fabric capable of absorbing development inputs. Education is the greatest enabler at an individual level, and removing barriers to primary, higher and technical education, as well as information and lifelong learning, for disadvantaged groups, would ensure individual development and help transform and potentiate the local human capital. Training for economic activities must aim to bridge the gap between competencies required for current markets and those available within the disadvantaged groups, to make additional livelihood choices

available to them, and to enable them for effective interaction with the markets. Interventions need to focus on up-skilling for traditional livelihoods and ‘alternate-skilling’ for the uptake of alternate livelihoods. Frequently those at the negative side of the development divide are pegged down by low-end jobs and low margins, as well as lack of options. The results of such interventions would be enhanced employability, and increased entrepreneurship and economic activity among the disadvantaged groups, along with increased and supplementary incomes.

b] Enabling productivity and local resources: Local productivity in disadvantaged areas is usually constrained by lack of necessary infrastructure and support. Traditional HRD elements aimed at teams/groups may be adapted for effecting enhancement in productivity enhancement, with benefi ts for groups. Self help groups, cooperatives and enterprise clusters

Development Resource Centres: Pragya has set up several ICT-enabled Community Resource Centres in disadvantaged areas, equipped with a range of information and knowledge resources. Regular supplementary education sessions for children, vocational training programs for youth, confidence and awareness building sessions for especially marginalised groups, are held at these centres.

The Resource Centre at Joshimath in the remote district of Chamoli, is a hub of local development dialogue and action. It serves 5200 people, and has conducted 114 educational and training sessions in the 7 years since it was set up.


with shared infrastructure would be viable measures to enable producers in disadvantaged groups to grow and develop their livelihoods or embark into new livelihoods, while also providing for intra-group support, mentoring, and joint access to markets. Economic benefi ts would accrue to all members and thus raise the base economic levels and the group’s capacity for propelling economic development, and set in a positive cycle of growth. Development mechanisms need to be focused on group development. They should also provide access to enablers, in particular, technical assistance, credit, and management support, and assistance with access to markets, including market information and marketing support.

Heritage-based Enterprises: Pragya has facilitated 24 niche-sector cooperatives in the Himalayas, leveraging and commercialising the local heritage, such as traditional arts and crafts, local herbs and food products. The cooperatives have been assisted with formation support and storage/processing centres and a Microenterprise Facilitation Service in the districts provides ongoing training, market information and business linkages.

The MPGC (Medicinal Plants Growers’ Cooperative) set up in 2003 in the remote Himalayan valley of Lahaul, has given the tribal population of the district a set of cash crops, and the 600 farmer-members of the cooperative earn as much as USD 250,000 per annum via institutional sales arrangements with herbal majors (Dabur).

HRD also has a key role in the development of intellectual capital and management of local knowledge (Salisbury and Plass, 2001; Kessels

and Poell, 2004). When applied to disadvantaged populations, HRD strategies should aim to develop the intrinsic strengths of the group. They need to make them the factors of competitiveness, and thereby guard against the ‘one size fi ts all’ approach. Available local skills and resources, and local knowledge and innovations, may lead to maximum and quickest economic gain and multi-dimensional benefits. For instance, niche-sector livelihoods may be developed through the commercialization of local arts and crafts or bio-products; apart from a far shorter development cycle, given the local resource and knowledge base, this would also serve to preserve the local heritage, and provide socio-cultural advantages and benefi ts as well.

Spiral 2: Stake-building

The sense of community in marginalized and disadvantaged groups should be leveraged for the purpose of development. This may be achieved by inspiring

Development Catalysts: Pragya has developed a cadre of local youth for propelling development in remote, rural areas. Some of them are:

Rural Technopreneurs, local youth with a technical bent of mind, have been trained for propelling infusion of technologies, including renewable energy technologies and farm technologies.

Helpline Volunteers have been developed for clusters of villages, to provide counselling and advice to communities at the grassroots, and assist them to access development schemes.

Citizen Journalists have been developed in districts, to raise visibility of local development issues and needs, at local and national levels.


the group with a sense of responsible stakeholdership, capacitating it with the necessary structures and systems, and engaging and galvanising strategic human resources within the community as social capital for change and development.

a] Talent management and social capital: Flight of skilled/competent human resources is a critical issue of less-developed regions, and leads to eroding the HR capital and development prospects of the people. Local talent management implies creating avenues for capturing the imagination of such talent, channeling their energies, and providing them with a mission, thereby preventing outmigration. Youth, in particular, possess the energy and drive, and the capacity to learn, that is necessary for change and development. Hence, a focus on youth, and creating opportunities for them, to contribute to development and derive its rewards, would benefi t the entire community. Since technology and infrastructural gaps consti tute key hurdles to development in disadvantaged regions, trained youth-power could be leveraged to help access the benefi ts of technology for the masses, and to set up and operate necessary infrastructure as well.

Three strategic HRs need to be identifi ed and nurtured as internal catalysts and key elements of the social capital that would bring about the necessary change and development at the community level: change agents, i.e. people with potential for driving change in specifi c areas (eg, education, agriculture) at the local-level; role-models and mentors, i.e. early adopters of newer technologies, and progressive members who can demonstrate more effective and developed ways and also coach others; torchbearers or enthusiasts who can promote the change and development process, provide the social

push to newer ways, and help increase their uptake. Local civil society should seek to develop and support these strategic HRs to play an effective role in community development.

b] Learning and se l f -determinat ion: Community organizations and facilities serve to empower communities, and help them take charge of their own development. The route to responsible stake-building hence would be via the creation of community-based structures to help shape an appropriate form of development, ensuring cultural-specificity and sustainability of development strategies, participative HRD principles and methods of team and organization development may be adapted for the purpose. Community groups when made responsible for it, have been found to more effectively weave together development and conservation elements in micro-level development plans, with a stronger sense of community and sustainability. Alongside, systems for participative management should be created, with institutionalized processes for self-direction, that allow the communities to periodically evaluate their development status and make necessary corrections.

HRD at a community/societal level also encompasses the notion of the learning community as an ongoing change mechanism, enabling self-direction, participative evaluation, equal opportunity and power sharing (Tosey, 1999).The above HRD strategies for disadvantaged groups would make for self-propelled learning systems at a micro-level, and local-level governance of services from the government and mainstream development mechanisms. In particularly remote, disadvantaged areas, where the cost of delivery of essential services might be prohibitive, community organizations and service


providers (eg., traditional healers) may be strengthened, to supplement existing measures or compensate for the lacunae in state provisions, through community-based initiatives.

Spiral 3: Citizenship Building

The marginalization of disadvantaged groups and their socio-cultural-political exclusion from the mainstream, serves to increase the psychological divide within countries, and when this festers, even jeopardizes the integrity of nation

states. Building effective citizenship of disadvantaged groups, which would reduce their marginalization and enhance their integration, calls for a two-pronged approach: empowerment and active democracy for the disadvantaged groups, and inclusion and solidarity by mainstream populations.

a] Empowerment and leadership development: Disadvantaged groups typically have limited infl uence over the forces that shape their lives and even lesser infl uence over national politics. Most often, these groups are small, scattered populations, signifi cantly different/dissimilar from the mainstream population, and unable to agglomerate due to socio-cultural and geo-physical constraints, which renders them voiceless or unheard in national processes. A concerted effort is necessary to educate the marginalized groups on their civic and political rights and responsibilities, and promote their active participation in local and national politics, and aim to develop a politically informed, aware and engaged populace. Processes for culture building and change and development may be introduced to facilitate such empowerment.

Aids for Active Democracy: Pragya implements a regular communication initiative for building awareness of civic and political rights in remote areas, delivered through the Resource Centres in the area. Political and legal experts are also used to train panchayat leaders and local activists and groom them for their role.

Community Development Advocates have been developed in the remote districts, to study local issues, dialogue with the government and affected groups, and work to bring about necessary changes.

Community Councils: Pragya has facilitated the formation of CBOs in remote areas, for various welfare, development and conservation functions, at the local level. These organisations have also been strengthened with formal structures and systems to aid them in scientifi c conduct of these functions.

Community Conservation Councils (CCC) and Habitat Monitoring system: CCCs have been set up to ensure sustainable use and protection of natural resources of the community. Annual habitat monitoring by them tracks changes in the status of endangered species, forests and water bodies in their neighbourhood, for necessary action.

Network of CitizenÊs Resources for Welfare (NetCReW) and Barefoot Monitoring system: NetCReWs use a quarterly monitoring mechanism to check on the adequacy and quality of services and facilities for education, health, power, in villages.

WomenÊs Care Groups (WCG) and Mother andChild Health Surveillance system: WCGs in remote villages use the health surveillance system for monthly monitoring of nutrition and health status of women and children and timely access to hospitals and professional treatment.


Alongside, local, political leadership must be developed, and representation of the marginalized groups ensured at the larger societal level. Devolution of powers to the grassroots, even where the formal political processes have embraced this, is often only paid lip-service to, partly due to lack of associated capacity in grassroots leadership. Training for leadership development and micro planning and programming would ensure the real devolution of powers and the effective use of these for local development. In addition, capacity building for effective representation should also be provided to local leaders, along with ongoing mentoring/coaching, for the use of mainstream political processes to address local issues and bridge the development divide.

b] Integration and inclusion: Effective integration of marginalized groups faces several barriers from mainstream populations and processes. The socio-cultural distance between the mainstream and marginalized communities is predicated by social mores and a range of prejudices that support these; a vicious cycle is played out as the social divide and mutual mistrust is deepened by the distance and lack of interaction. Creating and institutionalizing processes that foster interaction between the disadvantaged groups and mainstream population, would serve to create understanding and respect between them, and overcome the beliefs and perceptions that hinder the socio-cultural integration of the disadvantaged groups. Cross-cultural networks and linkages, inter-group dialogues, campaigns and festivals, would propel changes in the deep structures of cultural attitudes, and bring about inter-group trust, harmony and solidarity.

Stakeholder Forums: Pragya has established stakeholder forums for marginalised areas and communities and enabled them with processes for engaging with the wider community and interacting with government and civil society. These include web-based discussions, online and physical campaigns, portals for awareness-raising, and conferences and dialogues with development actors.

High Himalaya Forum (HHF): HHF, a stakeholder forum, spans all high-altitude Himalayan districts. Members in districts interact quarterly with the government on development issues, and periodic national level dialogues/conferences are held with HHF members from all Himalayan districts. The HHF website conducts regular online discussions/campaigns on development issues of the Himalayas.

Himalayan Voices (HV) and Himalayan Heritage (HH): 2 web-portals have been set up with the aim of wider awareness on the Himalayas. HV provides comprehensive information and research on the Himalayan region, while HH provides links to the culture, products and services of the Himalayas.

Insufficient understanding among development actors, of the problems of disadvantaged groups and the development neglect and constraints suffered by them, tends to rob the disadvantaged groups of suitable and adequate development attention. Governmental and non-governmental development professionals need to be educated and informed about these, adopting HRD methods for cross-cultural management training, to build their sensitivity to disadvantaged groups and their proficiency in area/group specific development


actions. Opportunities should also be created for face-to-face interactions between development actors and the disadvantaged groups. Stakeholder forums, people-state dialogues, civil society round tables, centered on specific development issues of the disadvantaged groups, and backed up by a micro-level evidence-base, have been found to be effective measures for capturing the attention of development actors and propelling inclusive development.

5. Conclusion

The model presented above, based on the experiences of a non-profi t entity working

References:Garavan, T.N., McGuire, D., and O’Donnell, D (2004). Exploring human resource development: A levels of analysis approach. Human Resource Development Review 3(4), 417-441.

Kessels, J.W.M. and Poell, R.F. (2004) Andragology and social capital theory: the implications for Human Resource Development. Advances in HRD. 6 (2) 146-157.

McLean, G. N. (2004). National human resource development: What in the world is it? Advances in Developing Human Resources, 6(3), 269-275.

Salisbury, M. and Plass, J. (2001). “A Conceptual Framework for a Knowledge Management System”, Human Resource Development International, Vol. 4, No. 4, p. 451 – 464.

Tosey, P. (1999). The Peer Learning Community: A Contextual Design for Learning, Management Decision, Vol. 37, No. 5, p. 403 – 410.

with especially disadvantaged groups, seeks to ensure that the people deprived of the benefi ts of development, relative to a larger, mainstream population, are brought back into the circle of development, via an inclusive, 3-pronged strategy for human resource and social capital development in these groups, utilizing approaches and methods from HRD and complementary disciplines. Low-performing units/divisions in fi rms could adopt a similar HRD strategy for transforming the relevant organization and the associated human resources by building their capabilities, their stake in the particular unit/division, and their participation in the overall fi rm.


About the Author

Sukumar Rajagopal is Chief Information Offi cer and Head of Innovation at Cognizant. Sukumar has over 24 years of experience in the IT consulting industry focused exclusively on Global Delivery Models. Sukumar has been with Cognizant for over 17 years, and most recently, served as Cognizant’s Chief Knowledge Offi cer. Sukumar was instrumental in the roll out of the One Cognizant program, a major transformational initiative. The One Cognizant platform has received several prestigious awards — CIO

100 honoree, NASSCOM HR Summit Winner, Infoweek Top 250 honoree for best use of technology for employee engagement and NASSCOM Top 5 Innovations 2012.

Sukumar was among the fi rst 200 people in the world to pass the IEEE Certifi ed Software Development Professional (CSDP) exam. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from BITS, Pilani, India.

OLD INNOVATION OR NEW INNOVATION?SUKUMAR RAJAGOPAL

Today, you can’t read a magazine or attend an event without coming across

the word “innovation”. The growing importance accorded to innovation has also given rise to several mistaken notions about it. While all misconceptions surrounding innovation cannot be addressed in one article, it would be pertinent to look at the concept through the prism of “old” and “new” innovations.

It is unfortunate that we have been conditioned to think that innovation means something altogether new. Even an iPhone 5S, for example, despite being one of the best designed phones, is not deemed “innovative” enough by pundits. This could be perhaps because its fl agship feature—the fingerprint scanner and security system—has been around for a while now. However, from my personal experience, I can say that just the magical fi ngerprint scanner in iPhone 5S is worth millions of hours of productivity gains

achieved across all iPhone users around the world by eliminating the need for them to enter passwords.

For us to understand the “old” versus “new” innovation better, let us first understand how innovation spreads across a large population of people or organizations or countries. Professor Everett Rogers covered this topic in his 1962 book “Diffusion of Innovations”. Since then, the following diagram [sourced here from Wikipedia] has become a gospel truth for people in the fi eld of innovation [although Geoffrey Moore’s “Crossing the Chasm” curve is a more accurate depiction of the diffusion phenomenon].


As seen in the diagram, any innovation goes through an adoption cycle that fi rst covers “Innovators” and “Early Adopters” and progresses fi nally to the “Laggards”. Depending on how much change an innovation entails for an adopter, the adoption curve could last several years or even spread over decades to reach 100% market share. Furthermore, innovations that are still in the “Innovators” and “Early Adopters” stage could be deemed “new” and those that have crossed over to the “Early Majority” and beyond could be deemed “old”.

Let us take the example of an organization that is still managing its sales pipeline using spreadsheets. It is surprising just how many organizations are still sailing on this boat. It is also surprising that numerous organizations in countries such as India are doing this using pen and paper even today. In this scenario, if you are able to implement a CRM [Customer Relationship Management] system and improve sales force productivity and effectiveness, would you call that innovation?

S o m e m a y s a y “ n o ” , w h i c h i s understandable given our notion of innovation as being something “new”. But those already using CRM might fi nd this boring. After all, most minds are also conditioned to equate old with boring. This line of thinking is pervasive across the world and this is one of the key reasons why innovations such as CRM systems haven’t attained their full market-share despite being around for several decades.

Inside corporations too, many processes are still stuck in the stone age with outdated approaches, methods and applications. This begets the question: How big is this “old” innovation space? What are we missing?

To get a perspective, we need to look at the portfolio based approach to

managing Innovation. The fact that innovation is risky is well known. In the banking industry, the risky business of investments is managed using a portfolio approach, where risk is spread across multiple asset classes with different risk profi les. Researchers applied the same idea to managing innovation, and came up with the 70:20:10 thumb rule: 70% of the innovation efforts are spent in the core business, 20% in adjacency business areas, and 10% in transformational business opportunities. This approach was outlined in a must-read Harvard Business Review article, “Managing Your Innovation Portfolio” by Bansi Nagji and Geoff Tuff (May 2012).

In this approach, instead of voting innovations as “old” or “new”, we attack both “old” and “new” innovations. Our experience suggests that “old” innovations fi t the core and adjacency businesses very well, while “new” innovations align well with transformative business. My argument is that by dismissing “old” innovations, we are actually missing out on 90% of innovation opportunities.

Because CRM systems are an “old” innovation, the risks are low and benefi ts high when they are implemented properly. So why would organizations ignore such nearly fail-safe innovations?

My observation is that many organizations are not adopting a portfolio-based approach to innovation. Instead, they are chasing “new” innovations exclusively, typically using the R&D function, and coming up short. In fact, coming up short could be an understatement, if you consider Booz Allen’s annual Global 1000 innovation report [http://www.booz.com/global/home/what-we-think/global-innovation-1000 ]. According to the report, the Global 1000 spend approximately $0.5 trillion every year chasing “new” innovations.


At Cognizant, we have adopted a different approach to innovation. Our Managed Innovation program uses the portfolio-based approach. Using this approach, 55,000 innovators across Cognizant have delivered innovation impact worth $1.6 billion to our customers over the last four years. Our innovation program was rated

in the Global Top 10 in the “Innovating Innovation” challenge held by McKinsey and Harvard Business Review in February 2013 [http://www.mixprize.org/story/managed-innovation-oxymoron].

In the realm of innovation, “old” isn’t necessarily boring.


About the Author

Sandeep Kohli is a seasoned HR professional with over 24 years of experience across the complete value chain of HR, having worked extensively in the areas of Strategy, Talent Management, Leadership Development, Coaching, Leading Change & HR Transformation. He has exposure to multiple Industries including Consulting (EY), IT (Microsoft, Siemens), Manufacturing (Taylor Instruments) and Telecom (TCIL Bell South).

Currently, Sandeep is National Director Human Resources at Ernst & Young, leading HR for all its businesses viz. Advisory, Assurance, Tax & Transactions with over 8000 people across India.

INNOVATIVE HR PRACTICES – ENGAGING MULTI-GENERATIONAL WORKFORCE

SANDEEP KOHLI

A consulting organization like EY builds and sustains its market leadership by

virtue of great intellectual capital. We are a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services with over 175,000 people spread across the globe. For us, our people are fundamental to our success, and we work towards providing our people with the best in class experience irrespective of their skills, experience, gender or age groups.

To best leverage our people strength, we have created the most competitive HR strategy of building “Whole of life relationships” with our people. Whether people are with the fi rm for three months,

three years or thirty years, we provide them an exceptional EY experience that adds value to their career and to their personal growth. We develop a lifelong relationship with our people and an allegiance to the fi rm which starts before people join EY and continues long after they leave.

Whole of life relationship

Our “whole of life” proposition is central to what drives our differentiating people culture and employee engagement that results in a holistic and lifelong relationship with our people.


Before you join

Our reach to a diverse mix of talent ensures we attract candidates with a global mind-set. We look for a rich and diverse perspective on life and a sense that an individual will embody our values.

We have the most individual-centric, respectful and value adding experience for any candidate who engages with us. Interaction with EY enhances a candidate’s professional self-esteem regardless of the ultimate outcome.

Attracting multigenerational workforce

Only best can attract the best

We work hard to identify candidates with exceptional technical skills; passion to make a difference and personality that stands out. We look for a rich and diverse perspective on life and a sense that an individual will embody our values. A sense of authenticity is important too. We stress to all candidates the importance of Education, Technical Skills and Values and

Ethics, as the three important pillars of our requirements. Given below is a snapshot of how we attract people from different backgrounds and age groups as a part of our HR strategy.

Ensuring the right “fi t”

Employee referral program: Our employee referral program is the most trusted and dependable source of hiring people with the right skill set, attitude and values. It promises the right fi t both technically and culturally for the fi rm, and provides attractive and substantial cash rewards to our people for each successful referral. It is also an effective medium of creating a pool of like-minded people across generations and surround themselves with people they know and trust.

Our employee referral program contributes to nearly 55% of our hiring, which is very high per industry standards.

Campus engagement: Our campus relationship strategy focuses on proactive engagement with campuses and goes

Whenever you join, however long you stay, the exceptional EY experience lasts a lifetime.

Before you joinIt’s your choice.Make the most of it.

When you are hereIt’s your time.Make the most of it.

After you leaveIt’s your legacy.Make the most of it.

We create an environment that attracts engaged and motivated people who together achieve success for our clients/stakeholders, EY and our people.

We want that every interaction that a potential recruit has with EY should leave them with a positive impression. Whether they join us or not, all candidates should feel a benefi t from the experience of having met us.

We empower our people whilst they are with EY to have a sense of purpose and have the opportunities that add value to their overall career experience.

We ensure that once people join us, we retain our outstanding talent for as long as possible and help our people grow in a way that would not be possible anywhere else.

We ensure that when people leave, the affi liation that they have with EY remains and that we maintain strong relationships as people move on to new career opportunities. We do not see this as the end of the relationship, but rather beginning of the next stage. Whatever our people go on to do, we want them to remain lifelong members of the EY network.


beyond hiring. We connect through platforms like:

• Platinum sponsors of the mega debating event at Sri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC)

• Budget Ace contest in collaboration with Financial Express invited analysis by students from top B Schools in the country.

• X L R I p r o g r a m — L e a d e r s h i p engagement with students at XLRI through guest lectures, case study competitions etc.

• Enterpryze — Case study competition at NITIE’s fl agship festival.

Summer Training program – To engage millennial talent, we have a structured

summer training program where we spot and engage talent at the beginning of their professional career. Students from target campuses work with us for a period of two months on live projects with project teams under the guidance of our professionals as mentors and guides. This experience helps them to know the work, culture and people they can look forward to on joining us post completion of their course.

Social Media - Facebook

We have a strong presence in the social media with our constantly updated and active Facebook and Linkedin pages. We keep our future Gen Y employees engaged through various updates, which gives them a glimpse of the life at EY. It also gives them an opportunity to know more about our services and job openings.

Whenever we visit campuses for recruitment we make sure we introduce our Facebook page to our future employees, and showcase our values, culture, opportunities, and experiences to our prospective recruits giving them the right information of who we are and what


we stand for.

Testing the ‘Fit’ – selection tool for senior professionals

“EY Fit” is our tool to ensure that a potential hire is a technical and cultural fi t for the organization.

It is specifi cally designed around EY’s core competency framework with the aim of effectively assessing the candidate’s level of profi ciency on all competencies critical for success in a role.

When you are here

People at EY build value in their career that is recognized within the fi rm and the marketplace. This ‘Career Equity’ remains with them forever. We operate as one global workforce, innovative in the way

we collaborate across borders and without silos, both digitally and face to face.

Our people have the fl exibility to succeed and achieve in a way that supports and enriches all aspects of their lives, their families and their communities.

Engage

We engage our people across levels and age groups through conversations, choices and celebrations

It is one of our priorities to ensure that we engage with our people at all levels and make them comfortable in an environment that gives them the fl exibility to achieve their professional and personal aspirations. People engagement for us is not just policies, processes and systems; these are foundational but not suffi cient. People

Six core engagers

Bestpracti ces


engagement is about behaviors; and we do this through our six core engagers.

Conversations

We hear and speak with our people at all times and we do so in countless ways. We connect with our new joinees

New hire orientation program (Embark and WTEY): All new joiners at EY are taken through a detailed orientation program that showcases our legacy, leadership, unique employee value proposition, differentiating people strategy, but also provides the necessary knowledge, information and resources to accelerate the settling in process. Our detailed induction Welcome to EY (WTEY) is a two day program designed by global team and delivered by corporate L&D and partners of the fi rm to enable new joinees to understand our fi rm, our business and service offerings, solutions, etc.

Buddy: Buddy is a friend (experienced employee at same level) who helps the new joiner feel comfortable in the new environment; provides answers to queries

that the new hire is hesitant in raising with the manager or a colleague. This program works wonderfully well for the younger generation who are new to corporate world and needs more informal connect to settle in quickly.

New hire partner meetings: An open forum for communication between new employees and partners of the fi rm. New joiners share their initial experience with the fi rm, provide feedback on different processes, team work, interactions with various functions, etc.

Leadership Connect

We understand the importance of open communication and provide a variety of channels for all our people across age groups through which they can make suggestions, share ideas and reach out to the leadership.

Speak up: “Speak up” is a virtual and formal platform for people to directly connect with our Regional Managing Partner, ask questions and come up with suggestions, feedback and reactions on various aspects of the fi rm, its policies,


processes and initiatives. The transparency and exchange of ideas seamlessly, makes this forum popular with our people.

Leadership Town Hall meetings allow our RMP and Service Line Leaders to meet people and share Firm’s strategy, performance, key wins, and ensure that people understand the role they play in bringing our go-to market strategy to life.

FOCUS Formal interactive meetings between employees at the supervisory level and below and senior managers/partners skipping a level in between. These provide an important opportunity for youngsters to have face time with leaders and have direct communication with them. These meetings provide a fi rst-hand feel

of the working practices and issues faced by employees who don’t get to work or interact with partners/ senior managers on a daily basis.

People surveys – our unique approach to ‘listening’

• The biennial Global People Survey is the most important tool we have to understand what our employees “think” and “feel” about our business, our culture, the opportunities for development and the quality we deliver through our services.

• People Pulse is a sub set of our exhaustive Global People Survey. It is an important measure of our progress


against our people—related priorities.

The results of this survey are analysed on all major dimensions including service lines, locations, gender, age and tenure. Such analysis plays a pivotal part in designing customised interventions for our people.

Choices

You have the right to make career choices even after choosing a career with us.

Internal Job Posting: It has been observed that our Gen Y and millennial generation look forward to diverse experiences while growing in an organization. Thus to address this need of our young generation we provide them with the opportunity to apply for open positions within the organization. This practice helps our people gain exposure and access to diverse career experiences within the organization and enhance professional growth potential.

International mobility: Opportunities are available to people to get seconded to other geographies, to prestigious clients where they can gain rich developmental

experiences.

Celebrations

Joie de vivre: the art of engagement!

Rendezvous - A platform for our people to connect, collaborate and compete. Rendezvous is a combination of “on the fl oor” fun events, “online quizzes and contests” that are conducted throughout the fi rm on a monthly basis. This has been a very effective medium to engage our young generation who seek fun and lighter times at offi ce.

Offsites and team outings - Business units and service lines take their groups out for fun-fi lled and activity oriented offsites to exotic locations. Team outings and events such as movies, bowling, lunches, a day at a resort, etc are organized. This is a great way to de-stress as well as helps motivate employees. Success and special moments such as wedding, birthdays and child birth are celebrated – by gifting vouchers, personalized EY branded cards, chocolate box and congratulatory mails.

Festivals and special occasions: We


celebrate many festivals through the year to bring in the festive spirit to the work place. Holi, Diwali, Id, Onam, Janamasthmi, Christmas, Navratri, Independence Day, etc are celebrated across all EY offi ces.

Another key element of our people engagement agenda is our focus on Corporate Social Responsibility. We provide various platforms to our people to engage with their communities and work towards imparting education, creating sustainable models, supporting through our knowledge base, providing vocational training etc.

For us, CSR is truly a collaborative effort of all our people in the fi rm and it is an integral part of all the achievements and success of our programs. This year, we initiated a unique and impactful delivery model towards implementing CSR programs – a systematic and planned fl ow of CSR activities across the fi rm.

With inputs from the leadership team and suggestions/ ideas received from our people, the central CSR and HR teams collaborated and developed a new

model to effectively and effi ciently deliver services to the less fortunate through our people. This method helped us on focusing the CSR priorities for the year, effectively communicating in advance to our people about the forthcoming events and widening the reach of the CSR programs by using HR employee engagement tools.

Our people have used this to put forth suggestions and have seen their recommendations take shape.

Some of our initiatives are culminated based on collective suggestions by our people. Again, while employees come here to work, it empowers them to share an idea, become the long term project owner of the idea and be a part of the group that implements it. Some of the initiatives that our people have engaged in:

• Tree Plantation drive: Employees from Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore participated in a tree plantation drive wherein more than 1 lac trees were planted

• Clothes Donation drive: 23500+ Kg of


clothes donated and collected by EY employees

• 5 saplings gifted as part of employee birthday celebration:

• 1500+ employees pledged for a greener tomorrow as part of Environment week

Develop

To succeed

Development at EY is a mix of offerings

of learning, experiences and coaching that our people need to enrich their careers and deliver the best results for clients, as well as offering additional programs for current and future leaders of our organization.

EYU (EY and You): our unique approach to developing our people

EYU refl ects the mutual commitment we have to supporting our people to achieve their potential, and our people have to owning their careers. The three core elements of EYU: formal learning, hands

on experiences and coaching are aligned in the context of our clients, our business, our communities, as well as the role, needs and competencies of our people. EYU is underpinned by our global competency framework.

This framework is customized for each service line and each level thus ensuring that learning curve continues to accelerate at all stages of professional life of our people.

EYU Learning

• A three-tier learning and development organization consisting of the Global/Area L&D framework; Corporate L&D team and Service line technical training teams.

• A strong soft skills curriculum of over 30 formal soft skills courses covering a wide range of areas that are critical for success in today’s marketplace. These training programs are further categorized as:

• Mandatory courses for a particular level of employees in a specific service line.

• Role based and Milestones programs to equip people to manage new role post promotions.

• Skill—based programs like crucial conversations, The confident speaker, Creativity and problem solving, etc.

• An elaborate technical training curriculum classifi ed into solutions, methodologies,

Bestpracti ces

• EYU-Our unique career development framework• Cutti ng edge leadership development initi ati ves• Monitoring program for Partners• Global NexGen Program


sectors and industry specifi c trainings etc., across our service lines.

EYU Experiences

These are activities that provide an opportunity to put knowledge into practice and develop new skills to stretch and grow as an EY professional. These cover service line— specifi c experiences, quality service delivery, mobility, account development, coaching, leading change, recruiting, brand building and community responsibility.

EYU Coaching

It involves focused development-based conversations, between reporting managers and their team members to develop skills required to succeed in a role. Through effective coaching, we transform learning and experiences into practical application on the job.

Cutting edge leadership development initiatives

As a fi rm we are committed to investing in developing our future leaders and our leadership development agenda supports this commitment by preparing our experienced professionals like senior managers and above to take on leadership roles. There is a strong focus on creating a leadership pipe and preparing and grooming our people to take up leadership position in future.

Some of the important intervention to develop and engage people includes:

Milestones - EMEIA Role based programs

A series of development and celebration programs for newly promoted seniors, managers, senior managers and partners. These programs focus on equipping our people to succeed in transitioning into the next stage of their career. These programs take place on an EMEIA or global basis and connect our people worldwide so that they think and act across borders, gaining exposure to many of EY’s top leadership teams.

Leadership Track Development Workshop (LTDW)

A long range program that uses a

development centre methodology to do a realistic evaluation of the potential strengths and development areas of the target group of senior managers. The facilitator group consists of experts from


around the world, skilled professional actors to engage participants in role plays, L&D team and the leadership group to observe, assess and provide feedback to participants.

Mentoring program for partners

This program aims at mentoring to equip young partners to take on their new role with the guidance and support from older partners. Mentors facilitate development of partners by informing and advising about performance; identifying challenges and addressing development gaps.

Global NexGen Program (GNG)

EY’s two year global partner pipeline program that builds the skills and capabilities through three experiential leadership challenges focused on our markets, our business and our people. It aims to create new partners with strong market leadership skills, a global mind-set, wide networks and a broad understanding of our business.

Grow

We grow when our people grow

Bestpracti ces

• Career Management framework• Ongoing investment in counselor development• Advancing careers through higher educati on

Managing Careers

A strong career management framework helps our people to take complete charge of their careers through:

• Career Conversations — Meaningful, future focused conversations about the counselees short and long-term career aspirations and how the reporting manager/ organization can support in aligning these with business needs. We train our counsellors to engage their counselees in structured conversations that would help him/her achieve career aspirations.

• Career watch – A tailor made program for our high potential employees at senior manager level to identify, engage and develop them in a focused manner. The program aims at accelerating d e v e l o p m e n t a n d g r o w t h f o r employees and building organizational effectiveness, long term sustainability and profi tability for the fi rm.

• Accelerated careers for high potentials

• Short and middle-term international experiences

• Long-term strategic international assignments

Advancing careers through professional education

We are a very young organization and lot of gen Y and millennium generation people who join us right after their graduation. Through their career journey with us we support them to grow and also help them acquire world class education. Under this program we have teamed up with the Indian School of Business (ISB) – one of the top business schools in India – to provide a learning opportunity to our people through a professional post graduate degree program in general management.

We believe that to achieve sustained growth for our organization, it is imperative that our people grow. As a fi rm, we take various initiatives to help our people grow through a strong career management framework, counselor development, and providing opportunities for career advancement through professional education.

Reward

Recognizing and thanking people for a job well done

We are dedicated to nurturing an environment where people are appreciated


for their good work, extra effort and achievements in a variety of ways. We reward efforts that go beyond established standards of expectations.

Appreciation is a powerful motivator

At EY, everyone has the opportunity to get special recognition. We show our appreciation, through various formal and informal platforms, monetary and non-monetary rewards.

Excellerator - Individual and team excellence – To award our younger generation we have created a reward program that recognizes individuals and teams at supervisory level and below, who deliver high quality service by deeper analysis and insight; introduce new ways of enhancing processes, therefore excelling in engagement execution and driving high levels of client satisfaction.

Excellerator - Managerial Excellence – Our unique approach to recognizing ‘people behind the people’ aims at rewarding managers who effectively drive our people agenda by developing people and their careers, empowering teams, being sensitive to people’s needs and aspirations.

Thank you week - We recognize that success comes not because of any one person’s effort, but due to the contributions of many. With this in mind, a “thank you week” is organized on an annual basis, to acknowledge and express gratitude to different sections of stakeholders. A theme for the day is selected and initiatives are planned around those themes to thank counselees, peers, counselors, administrative staff and our communities.

This is a great initiative to engage and integrate employees across all levels, teams and boundaries.

KUDOS - Based on the idea of “on-the-spot recognition”, KUDOS empowers counselors to directly applaud people who show exceptional commitment and go the “extra mile” to deliver excellence in all their endeavors. As part of this recognition program, a gift voucher worth Rs 2500/- is given to an employee nominated for this award.

I Applaud is our spot recognition program, aimed at providing a platform to appreciate/ thank our colleagues on a one-on-one basis. Sharing gains and profi ts in a fair manner


Include

Together we can!

Inclusiveness means listening and making sure all our people’s voices are heard and valued. We are focused on creating an enabling environment where people from diverse backgrounds, skill sets and expertise work together to give us an edge over the others. In this pursuit, we have designed several initiatives to ensure that our people work together to make EY a great place to work.

Kaleidoscope of diverse people and cultures

Diversity and inclusiveness is of great strategic importance to us because it

affects our people, our clients and our communities too. We build a diverse and inclusive environment through:

• Robust D&I organization across the fi rm to drive our D&I related priorities.

• Being an equal opportunity employer by recruiting for all job classifi cations - race, religion, color, creed, national origin, age, gender.

• Gender sensitization to apprise people of unconscious biases and enable them to deal with it appropriately.

• Cross-cultural inclusion of people from diverse educational backgrounds, gender, ethnicity, geographies, cultures, physical abilities.


• EY WIN (Women’s India Network) across all EY offi ce locations to provide a platform to our women to network, build relationships and increase visibility to role models. Caring for our people and their families as individuals

We, at EY, recognize the importance of enabling our people to manage their personal and professional responsibilities better. We believe in providing them the fl exibility they need to strike a balance and succeed at both, using diverse, purposeful and inclusive approaches to care for our employees. We ensure that we provide adequate support to our new mothers and fathers to take up their responsibilities and strike a right balance while managing personal responsibilities and professional commitments. Best practices in fl exible working, our “My Life” policy framework:

• Flexi-time policy: Provides people flexibility of arrival and departure timings from work, while maintaining standard working hours per week.

• Part-time work arrangement: Equips employees to reduce their working hours to half to meet their personal responsibilities and still continue working with the fi rm.

• Telecommuting for working mothers: An option to work four hours in offi ce and remaining four hours from home.

• Extended maternity benefit: Policy provides an option to women employees to work from home or take an unpaid leave for a period of three months post the statutory maternity leave.

• EY Kids Zone: Our in-house day care center located within our offi ce premises to provide our employees with the option of bringing their babies to work.

• Paternity leave: Fathers get to bond with their new born over one week of paid paternity leave.

• Adoption leave: Gives time off to new parents to spend time with their new baby.


BOOK REVIEWS1 ORBIT SHIFTING ISBN 13 : 978 0749468750

Editors : Rajiv Narang, Devika Devaiah

Publisher : Kogan Page

Overview

Orbit Shifting Innovation is one of the most refreshingpieces of business thought-leadership to be published in India in recent

times. The book is co-authored by Rajiv Narang and Devika Devaiah, who are Founder and Director of Erehwon, a specialized advisory fi rm and a leader in innovation and strategy for over 20 years. The aim of the book sets the tone fi rmly for the entire work-“making innovation the transforming agent for the organization and the nation”. The authors’ overarching purpose is to bring more clarity to understanding the dynamics and enablers that accompany truly breakthrough innovations. The book is developed around insights drawn from several hundred breakthrough innovation missions that Erehwon has facilitated across a spectrum of Indian and MNC organizations, leadership strategy sessions related to transformative engagements and ongoing primary research into innovation processes across a wide range of organizations - from J&J and Unilever in FMCG, to Vestergaard and Vodafone in Healthcare and Telecom, through to

Grameen Bank and Tamilnadu Police in the Social and Government sectors.

Core Premise

The fundamental premise of an Orbit Shifting innovation is the transformative nature of its outlook and impact. Orbit Shifting Innovations achieve a step change in terms of both extent of transformation and shift in business model. Typically these involve fundamental changes to mental models with which we view any situation or problem (at a function, organization or ecosystem level), which provide the ability to identify and work toward solutions that achieve dramatic results and outcomes. In contrast, Orbit maintaining (or incremental innovation) delivers continuous smaller improvements to the status quo, without the quantum leap that breakthrough transformations provide.

Key Themes

Orbit shifting innovation comes not from searching for new ideas, but by uncovering new boundaries – not out of the box ideas but out of the box challenges. The book while a daunting looking 360+ pages, is an engaging read, as it is structured into modular, self-contained sections written in jargon-free style and with liberal references to actual innovations across a range of organizational contexts. Every chapter also has highlighted “things to think about for CEOs/Innovation Leaders” that summarize and highlight the relevant takeaways.

Narang and Devaiah, clearly come across as practitioners who have directly guided and facilitated breakthroughs, rather than just armchair theorists.The authors present a series of “myth” busters, that provoke us to challenge conventional wisdom around innovation. For example, most often it is not fear of commercial failure that discourages innovation, but a fear of personal failure or loss of credibility that causes roadblocks tonew initiatives. Similarly, bringing in “new people with new


ideas”for innovation to fl ourish is not necessarily the answer- it is more critical to ensure that the resources needed to meet an innovative challenge are fully met without dilution. And yet another misconception – market research or customer focus groupsdon’t hold the key to new answers – in order to orbit shift, the authors suggest we need to enable insights through new questions.

Orbit Shifting Innovation unfolds in four broad parts. The fi rst section presents a range of fascinating Orbit Shifts that Created History, from around the world. This section grabs attention from the outset, providing inspirational stories of innovation. Among others, how Vestergaard saw the potential of a low-cost water purifi cation device, through its expertise as a textile manufacturer, how the world’s highest railway line was built against all odds and conventional engineering wisdom or how one bureaucrat was able to redefi ne the problem of corrupt, ineffi cient policing into a community based service – all through the lens of Orbit Shifting approaches.

In the next section the authors describe what is involved in Seeding Orbit Shifting. This part of the book provides a useful fi eld-tested set of the tools and processes by which orbit shifting can occur by design. It provides triggers to identify and take on innovation quests, guidelines for managing and implementing the journey and fi nally revealing orbit-shifting insights. A particularly relevant framework here is the 6 horizons of insight model that describes a spectrum of increasingly widening horizons that orbit shifters could apply in order to arrive at new and breakthrough insights.

Section three deals with Combating Dilution, arguably the most challenging part of any orbit shifting journey. Here the focus is on the change management required to sustain and see through true breakthrough innovation, while avoiding the pitfalls of diluting the overall quest and fi nal goal. The authors draw on a wide range of examples to illustrate the importance of exciting and enrolling key stakeholders, and then ways in which to sustain and maintain the level of engagement across the orbit shifting initiative. Co-building and alignment with the overarching purpose of the orbit shift are some of the keys to achieving this approach.

The fi nal section deals with Leading Orbit Shifting Innovation – what is required in terms of leadership mindsets and approaches for institutionalizing innovation. This fi nal part of Orbit Shifting Innovation, describes in detail what it takes to build an innovation DNA in any context. Narang and Devaiah outline a well-defi ned fi ve- stage threshold map for Orbit shifts, which succinctly encapsulates the end-to-end process involved – from Generating Escape Velocity, to Detailing the Orbit Shifting Innovation to Developing and Implementing the Successful In-Market Modelof the desired transformation. The most thought-provoking and most engaging part of this section, is the chapter that outlines the traits common to orbit shifters across a range organizational, business and societal contexts. These range from Orbit Shifting Innovation being a direction not a destination, possessing an attacker vs. defender mindset, seeking to discover new insights and questions rather than validate through new answers, using co-ownership rather than convincing to implement Orbit Shifting Innovation and the tenacity to combat dilution without compromising.

Takeaways

Overall, Orbit Shifting Innovation is very different from traditional books on innovation, in that it presents not only grounded, real-life examples of transformational initiatives, but also backs these with the rigor of supporting theoretical and process framework, which can be used across the innovation lifecycle, from diagnostics through to analysis and implementation. The book is particularly interesting in the way it deals with what the authors refer to as Mindset Gravity – a pervading force that traps all of us into our current “orbits” of thinking and behavior.

It would have been good tohave had more examples of “end-to-end” application of the Orbit Shifting Innovationprocess –this book draws from experiences from a series of interconnected engagements, based on which the overall framework has been developed and refi ned. Therefore while one can clearly relate specifi c engagements to phases and elements of the overall Orbit Shifting Innovation


framework, start-to-fi nish innovation breakthroughs are likely still ongoing projects. Additionally, it would be wonderful to see the authors’ research on innovation from non-traditional management contexts such as India and the developing world being recognized and extended to the wider body of traditionally western-dominated innovationand management theory.

In conclusion Orbit Shifting Innovation isan enjoyable and informative readthat provides a fresh lens with which to view and approach innovation - and a highly-recommended way to commence addressing the challenges and opportunities ahead in 2014.

Reviewed by:

Raj Dharmaraj Head HR - Emerging Business Accelarator, Cognizant Technology Solutions


INNOVATION AND HRVolume 7 Issue 1 January 2014

NHRD Network Board MembersNational President: Mr Rajeev Dubey, President (Group HR & After-Market) & Member of the Group Executive Board, Mahindra & Mahindra

Past National President : Dr. T V Rao, Chairman - T V Rao Learning Systems

Dr Santrupt Misra, CEO, Carbon Black Business & Director, Group H.R. - Aditya Birla Management Corporation Pvt Ltd Dwarakanath P, Advisor-Group Human Capital - Max India Aquil Busrai, Chief Executive Offi cer - Aquil Busrai Consulting

NS Rajan, Group Chief Human Resources Offi cer and Member of the Group Executive Council, TATA Sons Ltd

S Y Siddiqui, Chief Operating Offi cer - Administration (HR, Finance, IT & COSL), Maruti Suzuki India LtdRegional Presidents: East: Nihar Ranjan Ghosh, Executive Director (HR) - Retail Sector, Spencer’s Retail LtdSouth: L Prabhakar, Vice President (HR) Agri-Business Division, ITC Ltd West: Ms Anjali Raina, Executive Director, Harvard Business School North: Ms Veena Swarup, Director (HR), Engineers India LtdNational Secretary: S V Nathan, Director Talent (US-India), DELOITTENational Treasurer: Ms Shelly Singh, Co-Founder & EVP, People Strong HR ServicesDirector General: Kamal Singh Editorial Team Sriram Rajagopal, Vice-President – Head HR, Cognizant Technology Solutions (Guest Editor for this issue) Dr. PVR Murthy, Managing Editor, CEO, Exclusive Search Recruitment Consultants, [email protected] Dr. Pallab Bandyopadhyay, Director - Human Resources, Citrix R&D India Pvt. Ltd., [email protected] Dr. Arvind N Agrawal, President - Corporate Development & Group HR, RPG GroupPublisher, Printer, Owner Kamal Singh, Director General, NHRDN and Place of Publication on behalf of National HRD Network, National HRD Network Secretariat, C 81 C, DLF Super Mart, DLF City, Phase IV, Gurgaon122 002. Tel +91 124 404 1560 e-mail: [email protected] at Nagaraj & Co. Pvt. Ltd., 156, Developed Plots Industrial Estate, Perungudi, Chennai 600 096. Tel : 044 - 66149291The views expressed by the authors are of their own and not necessarily of the editors nor of the publisher nor of authors’ organizations

Copyright of the NHRD Journal, all rights reserved. Contents may not be copied, emailed or reproduced without copyright holders’ express permission in writing.

NHRD fi rmly believes in and respects IPR and we appeal to the contributors and readers to strictly honour the same.

For any further clarifi cations, please contact :

The Managing EditorDr. P V R Murthy, CEO, Exclusive Search Recruitment Consultants, #8, Janaki Avenue, Off 4th Street, Abhiramapuram, Chennai 600 018.

[email protected]

ABOUT THE JOURNAL

The National HRD Network publishes a semi-academic quarterly journal where in each issue is dedicated to a theme.

The journal publishes primarily three categories of articles :

• Conceptual and research based

• Contributions from thought leaders including a limited number of reprints with due permission

• Organizational experiences in HR interventions/mechanisms.

About this issue :

This issue is on the theme of ‘Innovation and HR’. This covers a range of topics around demystifying innovation and innovative HR practices successfully followed by some organizations.

Editorial Board Members :

Dr. P.V.R. Murthy, Managing Editor is a product of I.I.T., Kharagpur and IIM, Calcutta with close to thirty years experience in H.R. fi eld. He founded and runs an executive search fi rm Exclusive Search Recruitment Consultants. He is associated with a number of academic institutions. He is trained in TQM in Japan and in human processes from ISABS and NTL, U.S.A. He is the Past National Secretary of National HRD Network.

Dr. Pallab Bandyopadhyay is Director - Human Resources Citrix R&D India PVT Ltd. A doctoral fellow from XLRI and AHRD, he is trained in OD and Human Processes from NTL, USA and he believes in applying HR concepts to practice to make it more meaningful and effective. He is a mentor and coach to many young HR professionals.

Dr. Arvind N Agrawal - Dr. Arvind N. Agrawal, Ph.D. serves as the President and Chief Executive of Corporate Development & Human Resources and Member of Management Board of RPG Enterprises. Dr. Agrawal has worked at RPG Enterprises since 1999 and his current responsibilities in RPG comprise of HR and TQM. Agrawal held senior positions in Escorts and Modi Xerox. He was the past National President of the National HRD Network. Dr. Agrawal is an IIM Ahmedabad alumnus and also an IIT Kharagpur alumini, and also holds a PhD from IIT Mumbai.


Building Sustainable Organizations: Role of HR January 2014

ISSN - 0974 - 1739

NHRD Network JournalJanuary 2014 Volume 7 Issue 1

www.nationalhrd.org

A Quarterly Publication by The National HRD Network

Innovation and HR

N T Arunkumar

Dr. Sandeep K Krishnan

S Deenadayalan

Saurabh Govil

Dr. K Prabhakar

Akash Bhatia

Curt Coffman and Ashish Ambasta

Gargi Banerji and Sunil Pillai

Sukumar Rajagopal

Sandeep Kohli

www.nationalhrd.org

Nati onal HRD NetworkThe Nati onal HRD Network, established in 1985, is an associati on of professionals committ ed to promoti ng the HRD movement in India and enhancing the capability of human resource professionals, enabling them to make an impactf ul contributi on in enhancing competi ti veness and creati ng value for society. Towards this end, the Nati onal HRD Network is committ ed to the development of human resources through educati on, training, research and experience sharing. The network is managed by HR professionals in an honorary capacity, stemming from their interest in contributi ng to the HR profession.

The underlying philosophy of the NHRDN is that every human being has the potenti al for remarkable achievement. HRD is a process by which employees in organizati ons are enabled to:

• acquire capabilities to perform various tasks associated with their present and future roles;

• develop their inner potential for self and organizati onal growth;

• develop an organizati onal culture where networking relationships, teamwork and collaboration among diff erent units is strong, contributi ng to organizati onal growth and individual well-being.