HR in the Personal Orbit* Shardul Tiwari watched with envy as his friend of many years, Parthiv Nair, walk ed into the restaurant with an almost springlike gait. Greeting him warmly, he said: I am glad you could make it . How could I not? asked Parthiv. You sounded anxious last night . Shardul had a lot on hi s mind. And he knew talking to Parthiv would help. cc Shardul, who had joined Glenn India as its human resources head early in the yea r, narrated the events of the previous two days. I have a manager, Kuldeep, whose performance this year has been abysmal, said Shardul. He is a wonderful chap, and has an impeccable track record. This ye ar has been really bad. I want to know what I should do now, for it appears this is the end of the road. Kuldeep s boss is clear he has to go, but I am not willing to let him go. I know what I am looking for is an enduring, more sustainable and credible system that will look at a manager in a holistic way. I need to find that soon. Explaining Kuldeep s case, Shardul said: I had a long chat with Kuldeep and discove red he was facing serious problems in his personal life which was affecting his performance. His s ister, Sheen, who had a troubled marriage, had come back home of them, said Shardul. The noise level at home had ver her marriage. As Kuldeep says: The logical outcome m unable to go back to that environment or go to work with a with her kids. There isn t any place for all gone beyond endurance with everyone at war o of that s clear to me, but in the interim, I a clear head.

Have you mentioned this to Kuldeep's boss? asked Parthiv. Surely, he will understan d what he's going through. Shardul looked at him hopelessly. Parthiv, don t forget that Glenn India is a multinational. You don't take your personal problems to work. Of course, I did speak to all of them." Shardul had met Kuldeep's boss and the country head of Glenn and tried to explain the need to ad opt a more humane approach to Kuldeep. The boss had been quite clear on the issue. He said: "Frank ly, I don't see any merit in doing so. Everyone has his share of problems and the competence of a manager depends on his ability to handle different situations. However, you are free to speak to the CEO for an other viewpoint. As for me, I won't have this man in my team." The chief executive had been gentler but equally emphatic. "My sympathies are wi th Kuldeep, I do wish

him well, but as an organisation how can we grow? You find me a foolproof soluti on and I am willing to look at it. Meanwhile, the decision on Kuldeep stands." "As it is, the pressure on performance is mounting every day." Said Shardul to Parthiv. "No one is going to discount perfo rmance just because you have a personal problem. You are expected to sort them out yourself or learn to cope." "Performance pressures exist in every company," said Parthiv, "but it's the mana gement of the performance that is the key. Shouldn't organisations extend help so that your pe rformance is at the level that is expected of you? To enable that, HR has to work towards improving access ibility and send the message across that discussing problems outside the scope of work is not taboo. There must be a safety net in the organisation which you can't see but must be able to feel and that me ssage has to flow from HR," said Parthiv who himself was the HR head of Peacock Industries, a large Ind ian business group. Parthiv felt it wasn't either about MNCs or Indian firms, but the kind of image that a company willingly and knowingly built for itself. Maybe, Indian firms feel less apologetic about e xtending a friendly hand, but other companies were under pressure to appear different, he said. "As a comp any, you are trying to extract the best out of your people because you want to deliver the best year. T hereafter, it is a chain of targets that are higher than the one before and with it comes the press ure to maintain that image. Then follows a regimen of cracking on the knuckles, and keeping a strict vigil. This usually results in a manager ignoring his own self, his life outside the workplace, leading to neglec t, stress and a chain of ripple effects which impact his performance", said Parthiv. Shardul could see so me of that in Kuldeep's case. But ironically, none of his evaluators in the 360-degree chain had even po inted out work-related pressures as a possible cause of his not-so-good performance. If anything, his 3 60-degree appraisal had, at all levels, diagnosed him as lacking commitment, being inattentive and lackin g team spirit. Shardul now said: "Parthiv, whatever it is, how can you get your appraisal system to eve n recognise that work pressures can destabilise an individual?" "I will answer that," said Parthiv, "b ut first, complete what you wanted to say." Said Shardul: "As I see it, Kuldeep's declining performance is partly attributab le to his personal life. But partly. Rather, I'd say, he is so preoccupied about being able to deliver 100% a t work that it has taken away his ability to respond to the demands of his home situation. In fact, I can see he's trying to escape from his home so that he can ensure that he performs well and earns rewards at w ork. Isn't that faulty? It's in the course of dodging his family life that he has depleted his energy to work." Parthiv smiled. "Having said that," he said, "you also have the answer to how your appraisal sys

tem can work better." Shardul became alert. Before he could say anything, Parthiv said: "Let me tell y ou how we do it at Peacock. We too use a 360-degree appraisal system, but there is a world of diffe rence between how it is used conventionally and how we use it." At Peacock, the appraisal system was the conventional 360-degree system until th ree years ago, when Parthiv took over the HR department. He found through intensive brainstorming se ssions with managers drawn from various MNCs and Indian firms, that an appraisal system had to have a n objective that wasn't primarily professional excellence. Our managers were emphatic that such a singula r skew was not congenial for growing leadership in the organisation. We discovered that there w ere two givens around which we decided to build our management development initiatives: a) we must ret ain the existing humaneness and b) we must accept that a manager's personal life is a germane par t of his personality and total life. So, any appraisal of a manager must consider the wins and losses in his personal life too. Not with an intention to judge, but to push the drivers that lend impetus to his org anisational performance. Thus, among the various parameters on which we assess our managers for leadershi p competency, a critical parameter is the ability to balance work and family life." Shardul grew keenly attentive. Parthiv continued: "We found that there was the f amily on one side and the workplace on the other. You have problems on both fronts. You are delivering well, the results are there to see, but what's happening is that you aren't building teams, you aren't building work relationships, you aren't mending relationships, you aren't seen as a leader who would be able to help others to develop and grow. Yet, you are meeting your targets. There can be two attitudes here: on e, he is delivering his targets and that's what I am hiring him for. Two, if you are building an organis ation which is going to compete on a sustainable basis over a period of time, you know that this resourc e is not going to have unlimited organisational value even if he continues to work for you. Hence, it i s important to grow people down the line who can bring that creativity and innovation to the table w hich will be required, because it is not just one man who is running the organisation." And that was where Peacock revamped its 360-degree appraisal system. "Let me sta te it in brief for you," said Parthiv. "The manager is evaluated by his subordinates, peers and his seniors just as your 360dgree system does. But where we differ is, one, the manager chooses his peers and subo rdinates who will evaluate him. Two, the evaluated questionnaire goes to a central agency we have appointed overseas, for evaluation, not to HR. Three, the final scores are sent directly by the agency t o the evaluated manager, again, not to HR." Thus, at Peacock, both copies of the report were sent to the

manager evaluated, while the HR head received just an intimation that the copies had been sent to the man ager. "From the report you can't glean what the peers have said and what the subordinates have said, fo r it gives a total score on the parameters stipulated," explained Parthiv. Only the certified appointed faci litators or the agency itself could decode the data and interpret it. The process itself was very unthreatening, said Parthiv, "because once the repor t comes to you, you decide whether you want an interpretation or not. If not, you either file it or throw it away. The HR head doesn't need it either, since it is meant for the manager, for his own assimilat ion. As I said, the 360degree system is for the manager. If he has built a wall around him, we would like to g ive him an opportunity to demolish that wall, rather than start demolishing it through our intervention." Shardul was surprised. The typical 360-degree method left little to the imagination, was not democratic and was much feared at Glenn. But at Peacock, the system empowered a manager to seek 'help' f or his own sake. Typically, the manager would call Parthiv and say: "Can you assign someone to be facilitator? Parthiv would then assign a person, who was a facilitator trained by the central agency, who was not working in that manager's business, location, or department, someone who had not worked wit h the manager and also wasn't too junior in the organisation in relation to the manager. The moment a f acilitator was assigned, the manager sent the second copy of his report or evaluation to the facilitator. "What happens then? asked Shardul. "Our facilitators are trained to get deep into the scores. When they see the thr ee sets of scores and the final scores from the central agency, they see a picture evolving. That is also the stage when the manager divulges information and insights on his self. In 12 weeks, they prepare the dev elopment plan, which is then integrated with his work plan," said Parthiv. Shardul who had a 360-degree system operating at Glenn had found that the managers evaluated usually felt threatened by its scope . 'Gosh! What does he know about me that I do not know myself or disagree with? was the common feeling . Parthiv agreed: "Very often we are not good interpreters of who we are." "But the way we use it, we are helping the individual as an individual for his own sake, and our facilitators are under oat h to the central administrative agency which processes the feedback questionnaires. Balancing wor k and personal life is one of the top eight competencies on which a manager is assessed, and these are key to leadership building. If we find an issue here, an appropriate development plan is evolved a nd integrated with the manager's work."

Parthiv cited the example of one manager "who we shall call Badri". His facilita tor Sugita came to me and said: "Based on his score card, I am now finding that his work side is heavi ly skewed. We need to do something. Badri, I find, is working on most Saturdays and almost every evening. Badri, she found both through observation and conversation, came to work every Saturday to 'think'. He opened his cabin, put on the computer, sat around an empty table, and left after four hours. But what he did was drink tea and think. "It's comfort, you know," Parthiv said. "The room begins to epitomise som ething which he can't get elsewhere. She asked him what kind of work he did on Saturdays and there was little that appeared necessary." Said Sugita: "I realised then that what he was doing was making the week linger on, feeling the safety of a structured environment; being with his things and hearing the sa me familiar buzz of the voltage stabiliser was like a pacifier." Sugita probed and Badri gradually revealed what the problem was on his mind he had an autistic child. "I am travelling 18-20 days a month and I don't get to spend enough time with hi m. As a result, when I meet him, I find I am completely out of touch with his development, the new init iatives made by his teachers, the new responses they got from him. and then I felt rushed, inadequat e and totally incapable. Through the week I am mentally hastening to reach him, watch him. Travel interru pts all that. And when the weekend arrives, I almost dread being with him because he has covered so muc h ground while I was away." "As you see," said Sugita, "Badri needs Saturdays to escape encountering his perceived incapability." Badri had said: "Saturdays give me time and space to feel about m y son, away from him and coherently. When I am with him I see my incapability as a parent, my lack of being in touch, and I also see lot of work stockpiling at the workplace and then my system breaks down . Coming into office gives me clarity without the rush of daily routine." Sugita heard him patiently. "I need to cut travel days to 14, but I can't tell m y boss about this, what will he think? Asked Badri. "No problem," said Sugita. "This development planning wor ksheet is going to be discussed. If the company has spent close to $500 on this process for you, it is only because it is willing to invest more on you. Otherwise, it wouldn't put you through it." Shardul was m oved. "It is not Badri's personal situation but the satisfying negotiation that such a system enables," h e said to Parthiv. He now recalled what Kuldeep had said to him. His boss had told him: "You do not commun icate well, and we see that your relations with your staff, you do not take customer calls, you don t... we think you should do the following." Judgements, not diagnosis. Shardul recalled the agony that Kulde ep went through, playing back his boss' observations over and over again in his mind. He told Sha

rdul: "It was not the truth or falseness of what my boss said to me, but the sheer threat underlying t he words that bothers me. The whole thing is like a verdict with no recourse. I feel very threatened and c oncerned. I actually felt assaulted. I did recognise that I had some corns warts, but someone in a positio n of strength was sitting before me and saying, we have noticed these things about you. It was demeaning, I felt like a school boy. The peacock process, felt Shardul, was empowering and democratic. A 360-degree a ppraisal was done, but no one would have access to it. The organisation did not want to look at it; it was being done to enable the manager to help himself. And even there it was left to the manager to decide if he wanted the report interpreted. Thereafter, there was complete secrecy and confidentiality. Even the god of all gods, the HR head, could not access it. That is what Kuldeep needed, he thought. "Of c ourse, we have had managers who have declined an interpretation," said Parthiv. "And what I tell th em is: "That's really your score board, and it is up to you to use it or not. Both copies are with you, the agency will not send a third copy to anyone unless you authorise it. So you can rest assured that it will not be known to anyone but you. It's yours, not ours." Parthiv cited the example of another top-level manager, a highly-rated performer , who contributed greatly on his job. "But his balancing scores were very low," he said. "Worse, in his ow n self-appraisal, he had rated himself very poorly, and that astonished us, for at that level, managers a re known to sing their own praises. "On being questioned, he revealed that he felt very distressed by the f act that his children hadn't got admissions to the best schools. That they were studying in an average school bothered him. The manager perceived that he was unable to balance work and home," said Parthiv. "I am ignoring my family at the expense of my work. I am a senior manager here and I have not been able to get admissions for my children in the best school simply because there is a tremendous amount o f networking and there is nobody to provide any support. How do you expect me to feel good about myself ?" he asked. At Peacock, they believe that if you want to hire top-notch professionals you mu st provide them with peripheral support. "And that is what our administration department did," said P arthiv. "They went to the school, got the information required, fixed the test dates and ensured the child ren were trained and taken for the test. The children performed exceedingly well, they have a good track re cord and were admitted in due course," said Parthiv. "Performance is sacrosanct and that has to be deli vered," said Parthiv, "but you must also accept that the environment must help deliver that performance. Th

e HR department must bring about a culture that, in turn, enables people and aids performance. After all, you are working on organisational growth and individual growth. How do you marry the two? People ha ve aspirations and so does the organisation. And you have to match the two, and that can happen onl y through developing the right culture. The instances Parthiv had talked about at length were so smal l in nature, but for the organisation, felt Shardul, they were critical enough to create the time and spa ce to handle them. Yet, he couldn't help wondering if Peacock Industries' method was far too democratic. If HR had to stay at arm's length, wouldn't organisational development be impaired, he wondered. Questions: 1. Discuss the key HR issues that are the hallmark of this case. 2. Analyse the approach of the two HRM managers to human resource/performance ma nagement issues. 3. Formulate other connected issues that you consider important in this case and discuss them fully. 4