Monday, May 26, 2008

Energised or enervated by work?

R. Shekar

Bill devoted the fourth session on HR philosophy to the marvel of the human capital to appreciate with use! “Have you ever wondered why children demonstrate more energy during vacation time than when school is on?”
Contrary to popular belief that expects work has to necessarily drain us of energy, some individuals who perform some aspects of work actually end up more positively energised after a gruelling engagement! Can HR come up with a philosophy that could capitalise on this freak occurrence?

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Monday, May 19, 2008

Personal growth with a difference?

R. Shekar

Third in his series on HR philosophy, Bill equated the predispositions the employees held towards their work with the ‘Employee value proposition’ held out by the employers.
“Do we see people in terms of their future potential or past performance? When we say ‘we aim to get the best out of their hidden potential’ do we comprehend that much more lies within the employee than that we are willing to acknowl edge? Do we recognise then that people do possess much more capability than what they may put forth currently or are willing and confident of ventilating in the future?

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Monday, May 12, 2008

Pre-disposition at work

R. Shekar

Continuing with his observations on people philosophies, Bill questioned the senior management on what it is that they intended to do about a recent report in the industry stating that less that 20 per cent of the workforce is actively engaged at work; in fact over 50 per cent could be actively disengaged!
Just as the senior management had some perceptions about the level of risk or opportunity associated with a decision and the forum and treatment appropriate to them, the workforce also carried some prejudices and predispositions about the meaning of work and its impact on the organisation.

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Monday, May 5, 2008

Personal paradigms at work

R. Shekar

Bill devoted the entire morning session to repeatedly bring out the power of the self-fulfilling prophesy that influences our perceptions and dictates our life’s choices. He got the team to list the various situations awaiting decision from the senior management; next, purely based upon their intuitive perception, he got them to classify them on two dimensions; was the situation requiring routine treatment or inviting a new thinking (X-axis) and whether the decision was aimed at containing risk or tapping into an opportunity (Y-axis).
Categorising the types of decisions according to their orientation to the situation (X-axis) and perception of the situation (Y-axis), he brought out the cultural practices that defined the people philosophies.

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