"Patience is the key to paradise"---Turkish Proverb

Conflict is something that no one has ever got a chance to avoid at their workplace. One of the reasons of conflict is perception. Hence understanding the Nature of Perception is very important. It’s not only the responsibility of only the HR personnel to intervene in such conflicts. Organisation leaders are also responsible for creating a work environment that enables people to thrive. If turf wars, disagreements and differences of opinion escalate into interpersonal conflict, they must intervene immediately and not wait for someone else to come and intervene.

Conflict can occur with two or more people who, despite their first attempts at agreement, do not yet have agreement on a course of action, usually because their values, perspectives and opinions are contradictory in nature. Conflict can occur:

1. Within a when they are not living according to their values.
2. When their values and perspectives are threatened.
3. When there is discomfort from fear of the unknown or from lack of fulfillment.

Here comes the role of a manager apart from the HR to handle the conflicts at their levels. The question comes, what can they really do about this? Well, there are certain actions that a manager can take from time to time to minimize and to certain extent avoid the conflicts.

1. Regularly review of the job descriptions of the employees should be done and employee’s should be encouraged to give their inputs for the same. Also it should me made sure that job roles do not conflict and no tasks “fall in a crack”.
2. Intentionally relationships should be built with all the subordinates. Meeting should be scheduled at least once a month alone with them in office to ask about their accomplishments, challenges and issues.
3. Getting regular and time to time , written status reports from the subordinates that describe accomplishments, current issues and needs from management and plans for the upcoming period.
4. Basic trainings to be conducted about interpersonal communications, conflict management and delegation.
5. Developing procedures for routine tasks and having the employees’ write procedures when possible and appropriate. Getting the employees review of the procedures and also training them about the procedures.
6. Regularly holding management meetings with all employees. For example, every month, communicating new initiatives and status of current products or services.
7. Considering an anonymous suggestion box in which employees can provide suggestions. This can be powerful means to collect honest feedback, especially in very conflicted workplaces. However, there is other side to the coin as well. Conflict is inevitable and often necessary when forming high-performing teams because they evolve through “form, storm, norm and perform” periods. Join us in today's webinar on How Every Manager Can Be an HR Pro to learn and discuss more on how managers can help and manage conflict in the workplace.

Organisations now have to be more proactive in terms of its approach towards its employees, their aspirations and meeting their expectations.

With the opening up of economies and employees having more exposure to international trends, it is sometimes a challenge to meet their expectations. Large multinational companies bring with them global practices that are efficient and scalable and allow these companies to quickly scale up as per the requirements. There is a reason why these companies have managed to run successful businesses not only within their own countries but also beyond their boundaries. And at times we have seen these foreign companies taking over local businesses and beating the domestic players on their very own home grounds.

So what is it that they have that makes them so successful and robust and that they have the calibre to challenge local players. It is their ability to quickly align themselves, re-structure, re-organise, re-think, re-schedule and meet the ongoing challenges. And all this is possible because they are not dependent on people but on processes. These organisations have now become process centric. Given the large geography that these organisations now operate in, it is practically not possible to be people dependent and not having a robust system in place. Be it establishing their inventory control mechanism or the quality control or for that matter putting up a process for Finance control etc. Anything and everything is now process dependent.

But what is a process if its not adhered to, and that’s where the technology comes to salvage the situation. Technology allows an error free, controlled flow of processes that can be tweaked as per the requirements and allows interventions when required The Need for HR Automation While organisations can continue to work in the way that they traditionally have been working but there are some serious benefits that organisations can derive when they choose to automate the HR processes. It has been observed that a lot HR people’s time is spent on transactional HR activities that practically add no value to an organisation.

A simple processes like leave and attendance, if not automated consumes a lot of time.HR professionals will have to handle queries relating to leave balances, leave entitlements,policy clarifications, reimbursements management in person.

Similarly, in more complicated processes like performance management, training and development,it takes more time for HR to collate the data than to actually make sense out of it. Adding to it are the task of chasing managers for a timely completion of appraisals while handling other processes manually. And once the appraisals are finally done, HR ends up with huge heap of paper appraisals with lots of texts written in free hand and then it has to make sense out of the overall developmental needs of the organisation. It’s simply not aligned and it’s simply not scalable!

If automated, HR will simply control the flow and not push the processes in the organisation. HR acts as an enabler to a process that is supposed to happen rather than loose sleep over something that is beyond its physical control.

Automating a process not only saves the precious time but also makes it error free. If you’re interested in learning about what Key Traits you should be looking out for in an HR software or HR automation process, we invite you to join us on our next webinar here: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/974226846 we look forward to seeing you and interacting with you there! If you have any questions or comments, leave them below and we’ll get back to you right away.

The January SHRM forum for Gurgaon was very very interesting because it pretty much summarized sentiments of HR pros that I heard all throughout 2011. The theme of the discussion was too review challenges of 2011 and see if we can identify innovations for 2012. There were a lot of things that were so common that we face as HR professionals, not just in India but all over the world - talent, sourcing and retaining, of course was one of the biggest challenges and continues to be. But one thing that stood out for me the most (because we were probably at our loudest discussing it) was to get HR a seat at the table.

The group of folks I met were very honest and frank about how and why the HR function is viewed as 'just a transactional' or a feel good factor for an organisation. I also often sensed a bitter sentiment to this of how the "other functions" hold more of an importance in the eyes of CEOs. In India the "other functions" tend to be finance and marketing. A riot almost broke out at an NHRD conference I attended last year when the speaker, Marcel Parker mentioned this topic. He also said that HR is to blame because they do not market themselves within the organisation. There were calls for marketing and HR to join hands by veteran HR pros such as Ian Welsh.

2011 also gave a wake up call that 'business as usual' won't cut it anymore. India's HR professionals needed to be on their toes to keep up with the boom as well as the effects of the recession. We also saw new changes that are happening with the next generation of HR pros joining social media sites like LinkedIn and Twitter to recruit, to network and seek out more information.

So, there we were ending the first month of 2012, and we are still debating and discussing the challenge of getting HR recognized by senior management. The discussion was not just about whether or not HR should be a strategic business partner. It was more about how to get HR to be a recognised partner in the business, with business owners, with business leaders, and with the CEOs of each and every company there is. In my experience throughout 2011 this discussion is not confined to India alone. HR professionals are there not just to hire and fire people or process transactions - they are there for a higher purpose.

The answer to "How should we get a seat at the table" is not something you or I can answer alone. But if you have suggestions, please feel free to write them down on the comment section below. EmployWise is planning to engage in this continued discussion and debate, so we're launching a new programme -- HR In the Corner Office, hosted by our CEO, Sumeet Kapur. Our aim is to get both CEOs and HR professionals on the same platform and hear out each other’s perspectives on how to move forward. What can we do to inform business leaders, and management professionals of all functions that HR is a corner stone to any business?

To join us, you can register here: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/153253214 It is a talk show so if you’d like to voice your opinion, please have a headset ready so we can hear your voice. We look forward to engaging with you.

Photo by: Michael S Galpert

Meeting SME Challenges From the Beginning.
 

If we seek high performance, low maintenance leaders, the first stage is really getting the right person in place whether we are promoting or recruiting for such positions. And, in a large percentage of cases, this is all too frequently where things begin to go wrong.

In the nascent stage of their businesses, many entrepreneurs bring in people they know and whose performance they trust. The only problem with this is the fact that the stock of such people is limited and insufficient to continue fuelling growth. But how many entrepreneurs learnt how to recruit/select effectively? In terms of promotion, they make the same mistake as many other companies, both large and small — giving the baton to the best performer, or the person with the greatest knowledge, or the one who has been with the organisation the longest. When it comes to recruitment, they rely on the same old “favourites” of skills, knowledge, qualifications and experience, added which is whether they seem O.K. and presented themselves well at interview. Based on this, they get handed the baton. Now the crucial question. What percentage of the new incumbents drop that baton? It is certainly far higher than is helpful to staff morale, customer service, productivity, and attrition, let alone the sanity of the Owner/Manager.

I regularly find what companies look for, and what they actually need for high performance in the role, are poles apart.
Understandably, effective leaders are difficult to find but it does help if we know what we should really be seeking in candidates, whether they be internal or external. This strong focus is vital to enable more right choices.
 

What should HR and Business Leaders be Looking For?
 

Unfortunately, the CV is not likely to tell us much, even if there are statements about being a manager and responsible for so many people and whatever processes. I am not saying this is fabricated. It can be quite true but it does not in any way confirm they lead people forward and whose direct reports enjoy working with them towards great results. They merely had the title but not necessarily behaved as a leader.
The word “behaved” was purposely used and emphasised to illustrate a fact: a significant amount of a leader’s success relies upon behavioural strengths, contributing, in most cases, more than skills, knowledge, qualifications and experience. What are the Behaviours Leadership Demands? Different kinds of role will require different mixes of strengths and, although the tools can assist us in setting these and measuring them in candidates, the very simplified and broad brush strokes of what we train interviewers to focus upon for leaders are as follows:

• A strong need to take charge, set direction, and face (non-technical) challenges. Sees the “big picture”, goal oriented and makes things happen.
• If a strategic approach is needed, then an analytical, thinker and planner.
• Who does not rush into things too quickly, taking a little time to reflect before acting. Can take a degree of pressure and deadlines.
• Decisive and independent, leaving detail to others and requires little supervision.

Then the “learnt” behaviours:

• Maturity and judgement.
• Stability and persistence.
• Attitudes and beliefs. (We are not judging a person’s beliefs, merely ensuring they will be comfortable adopting the values the company upholds.)
• Self-motivation.
   

Finally: Aptitude and speed of thought.
 

The interview.
 

The interviews need to be pleasant, not a “grilling” of the candidates. Questioning must be in-depth — it is too tempting to accept the first answer given and also to assume what the interviewee means, as opposed to ensuring we establish what they do mean. True: all this is easier said than done but training and practice, with subsequent reflection and improvement, helps enforce changing of habits and, interestingly, increases success.

Editor's Note: Nigel Copsey's passion is in helping organisations and managers to create an environment in which people get great satisfaction out of producing great results. After two decades using The McQuaig System® of psychometric assessment in Productivity and Performance consulting in the UK, he moved to India with the exclusive license for the McQuaig to assist organisations in becoming more competitive, by recruiting, engaging, developing and retaining for high performance. Nigel specialised in the management of change, productivity/performance enhancement, and people development. He has lived and worked in the UK, India and Sri Lanka and also undertaken short assignments in various other countries. Click here to connect with Nigel on LinkedIn.

Photo by: HGN Rocket Science