A startup builds its brands through its intellectual capital. Right people paves way for good things in any company, more so in a start up where the situation is vague, things are volatile, policies aren’t made and the business model is in evolving. Most start ups ignore the need of a specific HR department and make it just an auxiliary function. Very few start ups think of actually having a dedicated HR team. This passage identifies what the start up founders should look at for talent acquisition.

For many startups that do not have external funding having an HR department, that is generally considered as a cost centre, itself is difficult. Even then, when a team is made, the first recruitment in the HR department should be that of a professional recruiter because hiring is the top priority.For a start up, it is imperative that each and every person who is recruited is talented and can produce results for the company. Having the right people from the beginning in terms of skill and attitude is of utmost importance. Start ups cannot afford cost ineffective recruits. A wrong hire would mean a futile investment because there is no time to mentor an employee, as performing on the job right from day one is an expectation. In a small organization, employees are accountable to not just to the founders, but to each other as well. A recruiter’s job here is twofold here: One, to find the right people and two, to inspire potential candidates to commit to an organization that is risky and not yet established in truest sense.Companies that do not have a dedicated HR team could end up recruiting a lot from referral channels as founder could have a propensity towards hiring family or friends to fill up the vacancies. Then comes negotiating the wage structure and communicating terms and conditions of employment in the best interest of both the parties which is the forte of HR.

Even though it is strongly recommended to have a separate HR team, wherever it is not possible, companies should look at people who can manage the image building and identification of right talent,lest they end up in more worries.

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The biggest challenge to organizational change  is not the lethargy of the management above them.,it is the resistance of the employees who need to be trained. Need for change is constant not just to thrive, but also to survive.

Driving any change is not an easy process. It needs support ,perseverance and acknowledgement. A few points that should be taken care of while driving major changes are given below:

Buy in:  The employer should not only do, but also make it manifest  that employees inputs have been taken before the change is done. When buy-in happens, even if all the suggestions of the employees aren’t taken into consideration it gives a credibility because , people know that the company made an attempt to taken their views

Lead the change:  In every organization, there would be people who are trusted and in whom the faith of the people lie. This can be organization head, sometimes head of the unit, or sometimes managers who lend a lot of credibility to the team. These people should be identified and ask to lead change management.

Let people know in advance : Let people know in advance what are the changes and how to cope up with them. In case of process changes or organization wide career level changes, mini sessions and discussions can help them prepare. For major technology changes, trainings and on the job mentoring has to be provided.

Address their fears : It is not unnatural for employees to have their own fears in the course of a major change. This can range from the fear of inability to cope with day to day activities as a result of change to something as critical as losing promotions or even the job.  The company should ensure that no fears are left unaddressed.

Tell them the benefits– The last and the next important move important move is to let them know how the company and themselves will be benefitted by this move.A detailed account on the way things would work and the objectives  that can be achieved through such a new system should be driven across the organization.

All said and done, change management isn’t an easy process and will need regular follow ups and issue fixes so that nothing loses the grip or fall out of place.

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The famous quote by Martin Luther King Jr. talks something about passion in work .”If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well”

It is a cosmic rule that if there is a job in which a person is truly   passionate in, and he has the resources to pursue, no matter what kind of job it is, that will make him stick to the job as he would no longer be seeing it as work. But in a changing world, with increased competition how many of us can afford to work for something that one is truly passionate about. The above quote hardly feels true because a street sweeper will be left to live in poverty throughout his life due to the economic disparity with the richer class.

It is also a fairly well known fact that productive employees are happy employees. So what drives some of them to productivity and some others to loss of happiness? In a mundane job, how can we ensure that productivity remains if not passion. This is when we need to take a look at the other factors that drive employee satisfaction. Edgar Schein’s eight career anchors details Technical/ functional, general managerial, autonomy/independence, security/stability, entrepreneurial creativity, service/dedication to a cause, pure challenge and lifestyle. For every person, the career anchor can be one or more of these eight listed factors. The employees whose career anchors are fulfilled in addition to the fact that the organization has its basic hygiene factors tend to stay.

What an organization needs to do here : In order to retain its employees and keep them satisfied, first and foremost an organization needs to understand what anchors each of its job roles generally cater to. The fact always remains that different job roles would be catering to different anchors. Next, there needs to be a check done through surveys to understand if job roles cater to the anchors that are in sync with that of the employees and how much they believe the role meets their expectations regarding their anchor. These are the first  steps every organization needs towards retention and employee satisfaction. Not every organization can claim that all their employees work for passion. Sometimes there are more things to employee  productivity.

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In simplest terms, Strategic workforce planning is integrating workforce supply and demand analysis into the strategic planning of an organization.

Everything that pertains to business is increasingly becoming quantitative these days. The subjective decisions based on opinions, perceptions and experiences are getting antiquated and the world is moving to more objective decisions. Every decision whether It is an increase in revenue, or cutting down of the costs or future benefit calculation, is now relied upon by the numbers it carries along with it.

• In hiring decisions, with overall recruiting budgets going down, every hire is a critical business decision and must be guided by business strategy. The Strategic Workforce Plan is a map which guides that strategy and recruiters that can understand and shape it play a vital role in talent strategy.
• Lack of right skilled people- Unemployment may be rife globally, but still a major problem faced by recruiters is finding the right talent, especially in those areas where experts are scarce. Lack of rightly skilled people inside an organization is another problem which is caused by lack of foresight and unwillingness on the part of the organization to learn and grow.
• Rapid technology change -Once an organization deduces the next technology or process that will help it to strengthen its foothold, having the right people in place will give it fillip to move ahead of competitors. The speed with which an organization responds to external environment will have a far reaching consequence.
• Mitigate risk- Whether it is an upturn in the economy or rapid technology change or frequent attrition or change in strategy, aligning the workforce planning to the strategy of the organization will alleviate the risk factors.

A recruiting example :Advanced workforce analytics helps recruiters to identify the needs of the market and even before they set it and identifying the right people. A simple example of analytics in recruitment is companies using social media like linkedin,twitter and facebook  to target potential candidates. By knowing what tomorrow’s needs will be ,the softwares used in recruitment analytics,with the help of keyword search and user behavior and big data analysis predict the interest and future potential of candidates. In the near future, this data coupled with the previous work  records and the industry scenario can predict even up to the extent of the potential candidate’s tenure.

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It is said that one of the biggest challenges that is looming around for organizations are managing employees who are generations apart. Don’t get this wrong, but even a gap of 15-20 years can be a great differentiator. Generation gap has always existed in workplaces. But unlike now, in the past promotions were largely seniority based and the older employees used to be at the top of the pyramid. The change in this structure is what might lead to problems.

So what happens when you have a boss who is way younger? This phenomenon is somewhat present in government organizations where promotions have been stalled for years owing to bad manpower planning. The resentment and anguish present in the people of older generation is almost unmanageable by these companies.  Unlike in Japan, where seniority is valued much, India has a mixed and open culture. Some suggested solutions to this problem is by way of creating teams that contains members of all age groups and promoting cross mentorship. That is, people with experience imparting their knowledge to the ones who have less experience and the gen Y folks imparting technology and new process scope to the baby boomers.

But the real question is that will this  alone solve the problem? Hard chance. Unless an organization has a culture which support and value knowledge ,talent and merit and not just seniority and age, this is difficult to implement. In an open culture where employees have commitment towards each other and works together in an environment where the organization is put before self, this model of mentorship will be a great success.

This is very similar to the age old problem of having a female boss. Even though this has been tackled by organizations to an extent mainly due to India’s social and cultural setting,  some strains still persist . The junior-boss issue is again stems from a culture that is deep ingrained in our society which values seniority and age. With proper awareness of the fact that talent in young or old needs to be given its due respect, this problem can be alleviated.

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Management guru Peter Drucker had suggested that if the pay disparity between an average ceo and an average employee increases 20:1 ratio, there is bound to be employee resentment and decreased morale in the organization. But it is seen that in USA, the average ratio of salaries between the ceo and an unskilled worker is around 300:1.

In the era of Say on Pay where shareholders can vote on salary decisions of board members, it might seem that the shareholders are real stakeholders in their ceo’s salary. But the truth is that it will take some more time before say on pay and stake holder interests become completely visible on such decisions. For now, let us try to dissect the salary figure. When we say a chief earns 300 times more, are we trying to tell that he makes 300 times more profit or puts in 300 times more effort , or is it more about adding value, or is it a motivational figure so that all employees work harder and try to get into the top rung of the ladder? Whatever it is, wouldn’t such a huge disparity create a lot of inequity both within the organization and the society in general? Various studies have shown that increase in ceo salaries needn’t necessarily translate to increase in the performance. This is unlike an average employee for whom salary is seen as a major motivator.

So,what are the feasible solutions to this state of confusion ? Firstly, on a scale, there should be some sync between top level salaries of peer companies. Such peer benchmarking is hugely employed in the US where shareholders get to use such reviews which aids in deciding the votes on salary decisions. Second, the ratio of the salary of the ceo and the one who is directly below the top position in the pyramid shouldn’t be as more than three. The comparison should be made with other executive managers rather than the least paid worker and there should be a committee which splits up the salary into the performance part and a fixed part just like other employees and reviewing it on a periodic basis through internal and external benchmarking.

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All of us know about exit interviews .Probably the most candid expressions, suggestions and complaints about any organization come up in these exit interviews. For the exiting employees it is easy- to blurt out anything and everything they wished to say in this forum. And probably the real reason why they are leaving is right there in the exit interview answers. But isn’t it a little late to understand an employee’s woes when the moment comes for him to leave?

How many companies actually think about conducting proper stay interviews in a regular span of time? Very few as companies generally consider that the ones who stay are those who like to continue. In case any organization wishes to conduct these regular interviews, what should be the focus on? One, what should the employee do in order to stay and second, what the company has to do to make them stay.

For the first kind, there is a need to build trust among the employees. There should be a candid environment and the manager must be able to critically evaluate and explain what the subordinate needs to do in order to stay in the company. This should also be delineated from the performance reviews and appraisals .For the second, there is the need for immediate managers and senior level managers who are open to criticism and suggestions. The organization culture should also enable change.

So what is the cost and who bears it? – When the right employees stay , isn’t the company reducing the replacement cost? Though it may take a bit of time to research and study, tracking the attrition levels and associated training cost for the new employees can help arrive at a quantitative data.

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Some companies have found innovate ways to do employer branding, through their most trusted partners- the employees. There are instances when companies ask their own people to post updates about their organization on their personal profiles in twitter or facebook. This way, the company can gain access into a large follower group, the friends and followers of the employee in picture.

While this is one sure shot way of effective employer branding, there are some things that the organization need to think about. The primary caution is what if the employee leaves. Wouldn’t that take away all these friends and acquaintances of the ex-employee to his/her new employer? What if the employee also details about things that do not show company in good light? Is these kind of social interactions about the organization in one’s own personal space part of their defined activities? If not, how do you account for these? Can this be compared? And what about employees who do not wish their personal space to be encroached.

The HR department needs to think through all these factors before making it a a necessity for employees to brand their organizations in social media. While keeping it is optional is acceptable to a certain extend, opinions, suggestions and criticisms going over the board may not be!

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It is rightly said that when companies take over, they do it for a quick hiring as well. Established companies take over start ups in a bid to acquire the talent present in the acquired organization as well. It is a generally prevalent notion that start ups groom and retain the best talent by providing immense opportunities and autonomy. When a giant company takes over a smaller one, a pertinent question that arise is whether the acquiring company will be able to do justice to the people who have been absorbed.

Can bigger brands that run on processes and systemic approaches and perhaps a focus different from that of the start ups retain the talent that has been acquired. The answer is yes, if the company can provide the right opportunities to the people who have joined as part of the acquisition. In addition to this, there is also a need to understand the culture of the new company and work in a way so that the new employees don’t feel alienated when inducted into a different zone. Another aspect to be noted is that different employees come with varying proficiency levels in different skills. Skill inventory maintenance with adequate candidate information is very important for people oriented organizations.

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Can organizations measure the effectiveness of the recruited candidates? Instead of just going by the target numbers, can companies adopt this a method to find the Hiring quality index  of recruitment objectively and to incentivize their recruiting unit accordingly?

The answer is yes. But what are the parameters that need to be considered to estimate this index?

The hiring quality index has two aspects to it – The conversion ratio and the quality of the candidate selected. The conversion ratio is the ratio of the number of candidates who accepted the offer  and joined the organization after selection for a particular position TO the number of candidates whose resumes got shortlisted from the application pool.

Equally important is the selected candidate’s quality which can be measured broadly by the following factors like past performance measured by previous company’s brand and market value,appraisal received, hike obtained, candidates ability to stick to the job measured by past records,educational qualification  and time taken to fill the vacancy.

Companies that are looking forward to objective data will give weightages to each of these parameters and end up in a cumulative score for each selected candidate. The conversion ratios calculated along with the objective quality data on the candidates can tell the effectiveness of the recruitment department. Where it can be contested that a candidates worth cannot be decided by all these factors as on the job performance has many more things to be taken into account, it is necessary to measure them, as what we cannot measure, can’t be improved upon. The measures to improve the efficiency of the Recruiting jobs can definitely be proved worthy only if there is a system in place which can measure the differences.

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