Induction means introducing the new employees to the organisation or making him comfortable with the workplace.
It can also be called as a ‘welcoming process’ as it involves making the new employees feel at home and generate in him a feeling of belongingness to the workplace. The new employees, at the time of his joining, must be helped to get introduced and familiarised with the fellow employees and the organisation. Instead of leaving him to get adjusted through his way, it is better to properly and systematically orient him to the company, its policies, it place in the economy, etc. This stage is completely handled by HR department.
Now lets see the benefits of the formal induction-
* it helps in reducing the ’employees’ anxiety’ and gives him the opportunity to know about the organisation and the work environment.
* it develops a ‘uniform understanding’ among the employees and it also forms an agreement between the employee and the company’s objectives, policies, strategies etc.
* it creates a ‘positive attitude’ in the employee towards the company.
* the new employee feels like a part of the social fabric of the organisation.
To conclude this, careful orientation to this job will make his adaption to the work environment more speedy, his mistakes fewer and his attitude more collaborative !

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Despite of the daily onrush of e-mails, phone calls, memos etc., meetings are considered to be one of the most effective way to share and exchange information, to get feedback, to plan, collaborate to make important decisions for the organisation. But why do they have a bad reputation among the employees ?
Most people in the workplace thinks that firstly, there are too many meetings conducted in the organisation and secondly, most of the them are a waste of time. As the meetings are unplanned and poorly run that they derive no results that is why people have such a bad reputation for the organisation’s meetings.

A ‘meeting’ can be defined as ‘three or more than three people called together at a predetermined time and place to discuss on issues. There are some common types of meetings that are conducted on regular basis in the organisations.
1) Regular staff meetings- This type of a meeting is planned or called by the manager or supervisor. It is expected to be at regular length each week or two. The purpose of this meeting is simply a status reporting meeting or to update people on what is going on.
2) Project team or group meetings- Now a days, employees are required not only to carry out their regular duties, but also to fulfill certain special projects and initiatives. Project team or group meetings are the modern version of the regular meetings.
3) Cross-departmental meetings- The modern organisation communictes more between and among with its many departments. Different departments in an organisation need to interact with each other, their managers usually meets and work out issues. These kinds of meetings can be characterised to solve high level of conflict.
4) Problem-solving meetings- These kinds of meetings are called by all levels in an organisation. Their focus is to address issues that have been causing difficulty to many within the organisation. The participants invited for such a meeting do not fall along the departmental lines.
Quality meetings are conducted when participants-
i) assists in achieving the meeting’s goals.
ii) stay on track.
iii) manage their time well.
iv) stay and adhere on the agenda.
v) have a sense of responsibility.

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‘Retention’ refers to the act of retaining or holding something and if we talk about ‘Employee Retention’, it refers to an organisation’s ability to retain its employees. Employees once being trained have the tendency to move to the other organisations for better prospects. Whenever the employees expresses his willingness to move on, it should be the responsibility of the management or the HR manager to find the exact reason which led to this decision. High employee turnover cost may affect the time and productivity of business owners.

Employee Retention have become a major concern for the corporates in the present scenario and so, dedicated efforts should be made by the organisation to ensure growth and learning for the employees.

Now, lets see why retaining a valuable employee is essential for an organisation.
1) As we all know that ‘Hiring’ is not an easy procedure. The HR professionals have to shortlist individuals from a large pool of talented people and further they have to conduct interview, etc. so, Recruiting is a time consuming process.
2) An organisation spends huge money and time to groom an individual and to make him ready for the corporate culture. So, its not good for the organisation if the talented employees will leave the workplace as it will affect the productivity.
3) The Employees working for the longer period gets familiar with the company’s policies,procedures and so they adjust better but if the Employee turnover ratio will be high then the organisation will have to spend more on induction and socialisation process.
4) It has been observed that the individuals sticking to an organisation for a longer period of time are expected to be more loyal to the organisation than the new ones.
5) The most important factor to retain the employees is to retain the potential within the organisation. No organisation can survive without the top performers.

So, sincere efforts should be made by the organisation to retain the best employees and to stay happy in the current scenario.

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There are many factors in the organisation which can make a worker unhappy and distressed. May be because his fellow worker are non-cooperative or his foreman’s harsh remarks or his personal problems.
For instance, financial problems, unemployed dependents etc. may be working adversely in his mind. He is aggrieved and wants to ventilate his feelings and reactions.
A well-defined grievance procedure is an element of a sound industry. Effective disposal of workers’ grievance is a key to industrial peace.
‘Grievance’ means any real or imagined feeling, whether expressed or not, of personal injustice which an employee has concerning his employment relationship or grievance represents a situation in which an employee feels that something unfavourable to him has happened.

Essentials of effective grievance procedure:
1) The grievance handling procedure should be ‘designed in conformity’ with the existing statutory provision.
2) The grievance handling procedure must be ‘Acceptable’ to the employees. In order to be generally acceptable, it must ensure a) a fair-play sense, b) justice to the workers, c) adequate participation of the union.
3) The grievance procedure should be ‘simple’ enough to be understood by the employees.
4) ‘Speedy’ settlement of a grievance should be the base of a sound personnel policy.
5) The supervisors, managers and the union representatives should be given proper training to handle employees’ grievances for effective working.
6) The working of the grievance procedure should be reviewed periodically by the Human Resource Department.

But what is the need to have a proper grievance handling procedure?
It’s because-
* through this, the management can know the employees’ feeling and opinions about the company’s policies and practices.
* A proper grievance handling procedure keeps a check on the supervisors in dealing with their subordinates. They are compelled to listen them patiently and sympathetically.
* certain problems of the employee can’t be solved by their supervisors because of lack of necessary expertise and authority. If he cannot get satisfaction from his immediate supervisor, he should know the next higher authority to whom he can go.
With the existence of a grievance handling procedure, the employee gets a chance to ventilate his feelings. He can blow off his ‘steam’ through an official channel and so it will boosts the morale.

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Base Compensation involves monetary benefits (in cash) to employees in the form of wages and salaries. The term ‘wage’ is used to denote remuneration to the workers doing physical or manual work. Wages may be based on hourly, daily, weekly or monthly basis. But if we talk about ‘Salary’, it is usually defined as a mean to compensate the office employees, foreman managers and professional and technical staff. It is generally paid on monthly or yearly basis.
Wages may be based on the number of units produced (i.e. piece wage rate system) or the time spent on job. But salary is always paid on the basis of time spent on the job. Both wages and salary constitutes a significant portion of the cost of business.
Basically, Base or primary compensation means the wage or salary, allowances and other benefits paid in cash to employees. It is the fixed sum of money paid as compensation to the employees every month or year.

Components of Base Compensation:
1) Basic pay- It depends on the pay scale or salary scale of the job. It is determined by demand for and supply of labour. For example: pay scale of rs.10,000-rs.500 means that an employee will get a basic pay of rs.10,000 per month and with the increment of rs.500 annually.
2) Dearness Allowance(DA)- It is paid to the employees to compensate them against inflation.
3) House Rent Allowance(HRA)-It is paid partly to meet the expenditure incurred by an employee on his housing accomodations.
4) City Compensatory Allowance(CCA)- It is paid to them to compensate for higher cost of living in cities and it differs from city to city.
5)Transport Allowance- It is paid to the employees to partly meet their expenditure on transport to and from there workplace.
6) other allowances- Some organisations also pay uniform, food and entertainment allowances to their employees.

Employer’s capacity to pay is an important factor affecting wages not only for the individual firm, but for the entire industry. Thus depends upon the financial position and profitability of the firm.

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This word means Action taken in return for an offence and ‘Retaliation in the workplace’ occurs when an employer punishes the employee for engaging in legally protected activity. This can include any negative job actions like demotion, firing, salary reduction or job reassignment.
Most people know that laws exist to protect the employees from discrimination,etc. but these laws also protects the employees from retaliation. Employees cannot punish or take revenge for making discrimination or harassment complaint in the workplace. Sometimes, its clear that an employer’s action is negative, for instance, when an employee is fired but sometimes it’s not clear. So, as long as the employer’s adverse action would discourage a reasonable person in the situation from making a complaint, it constitutes ‘illegal retaliation’.
Sometimes, it difficult to judge whether the employer is retaliating against the employee. For example: if the employee complaints about his supervisor’s discriminating behaviour and the employer may change and start acting professionally towards his employees, then it isn’t a retaliation. Only changes that have an adverse effect on the employee’s work are retaliatory. And, not every retaliatory act is obvious or it necessarily means your job is at stake. It may come due to unexpected or unfair poor performance review.
If one suspects that the employer is retaliating against you, first talk to your supervisor or a human resource manager about the negative acts. It’s fair to ask specific questions related to this. The employer should have perfectly reasonable explanations, and if the employer isn’t willing to admit its wrongdoing or correct the problem, the employee can take his problem to ‘Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’ (EEOC). EEOC, is an outside body formed under federal laws to protect the employees from retaliation.
Employers are prohibited from punishing the employees for using or exercising the rights assured to them. It is possible for an employee’s harassment claim not have strong merit to hold up in front of EEOC or in the court, but if his employer took adverse action against him after he complained, he might have a lawful retaliation claim.

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‘Politics’ refers to social relations to gain authority or power.
‘ Office Politics’ means use of power to achieve the changes that benefit the organisation or individuals working in it.
In any organisation, it is naive to expect a politics-free zone. And business schools and institutions can never prepare you for the manipulations and mind-games that exists in the corporate set-up. Whether individual or group is engaged in office politics, both are highly destructive, as people focus on personal gains or benefits at the cost of the organisation. A line says ‘self-serving politics actions can negatively influence our social grouping, cooperations, information sharing and many other organisational functions’. Thus, it is important to create a healthy political landscape and more attention on organisational politics.
Have you ever notice how some mediocre employees rise while more capable ones fade? Often, it is because they know how to play office politics.
You could choose the higher moral grounds and stay out of office politics but saying ‘ I am not interested in politics’ can never guarantee you that people will leave you alone. Once you get branded in the workplace, people will always be on their guard around you so you’ll always have to ‘politics battle ready’.

Play positive politics:
Play positive politics, although your co-workers or bosses will probably turn any stabbing instincts. So, lets learn some positive politics strategies-
* Encourage your respected ‘higher-ups’ to think you as a protege, and they are more likely to defend you when you need them.
* Perform some ‘deliberate acts of kindness’.
* If some important tasks are not in your job, ask if you can take one on. Be sure everyone knows it.
* keep your Antennae on-
– keep an eye on the people who seems to disagree you at the meetings.
-keep yourself updated with the information loop and you should never be lacking in resources which need to do in your job.
So, if you play positive politics, you’ll never have to go into attack mode. Always remember that there’s no CEO in the world who hasn’t played the politics to succeed in this world!

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Compensation of employees for the services rendered to an organisation is an important responsibilty of Human Resource Management. Every organisation must offer good wages and fringe benefits to attract and retain the talented employees with the organisation because if the wages offered are not competitive as compared to other firms, the efficient workforce may leave the firm.

‘Compensation’ refers to a wide range of financial and non-financial rewards given to the employees. It is paid in the form of wages, salaries and employees benefits such as insurance, maternity leave etc.

An organisation has to design its ‘compensation system’ in such a way that it is able to achieve the following goals-

• By offering the well designed package, an organisation can ‘attract the talent’ available in the job market.
• The practice of lifelong employment and commitment between the employer and employee is fast disappearing as new employees don’t hesitate to leave and join other organisation if they are offered better pay package therefore, each organisation should design such a package which can ‘retain the talent’ within the organisation.
• compensation system should be designed to ‘motivate’ the employees to contribute their maximum towards the organisational goals.

Compensation Administration

Wages and salaries represent a significant part of the total costs in most of the organisation. The general objectives of the compensation administration are the following-

i) control of wages and salary bills.
ii) to establish the fair and equitable remuneration for various categories of staff.
iii) maintenance of a satisfactory public relations image.

The ‘traditional approach’ to wages and salaries has been to maintain wages and salaries at a level to which is adequate to attract and retain the employees but it fails to recognise human factors, including a desire for a better way of life. Due to this criticism, many other forms of policy statements have been adopted by different organisation.

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It is one of the Interesting topics of Human Resource. Did you know this earlier? Well, I didn’t. After reading this word, one may perceive its meaning as moonlight at night. But, no! HR considers the word ‘moonlighting’ totally different from one’s perception.

‘Moonlighting’ is an act of employee of doing more than one job, or holding a second job outside of normal working hours. In the process of moonlighting, employee might separate his/her interest from the main job. Most of us may think that one job is enough but for some, it may barely pays the expenses and so people have to hold a second job as the earnings of first job may not be able to satisfy the socio-economic need of one’s life.
Double Employment can harm the interest of employee in connection with his employment because it is assumed that no body can put his best or the same efforts after working 7-8 hours a day. As this may lead to physical or mental imbalance in employee’s life. The today’s social economic scenario bounds a man to earn as to serve his needs as a suggested by Maslow.

*Transition of employees to Blue moonlighting :
Employees get paid for their services in the form of wages and salaries. Along with this, the employees are also paid the fringe benefits and allowances to upgrade the standard of living but a few employees believes that all their demands cannot be met by the organisation hence, they depend either on some other organisations for part-time jobs or start part-time business in order to earn more money and become much more financially stronger.
Suppose, in further employees demand the organisation for the hike in wages and allowances. The management responded positively and so increased their salaries. Some employees will be satisfied with the increased wages and adjust their expenses with the level of wages and benefits from time to time willingly whereas some employees will not be satisfied and they will ‘not’ go for a second job in future because of their inability to get one. Such type of employees will have a conflict with the salaries they receive and will need a second job for additional income and it will not be available to them. Thus, there efforts to bear additional money will not bear any fruits and such type of efforts and the following result is called as ‘Blue moonlighting of employees’.
Positive effect of moonlighting-
ROLE ENRICHMENT
moonlighting can give an employee the opportunity to learn new skills that he/she can later apply in the main job and so can have benefits.
But if moonlighting generates excessive hours, then it’s cleary a problem. The overwork results in higher level of stress. A majority of moonlighting feels rushed or presses by time !

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Training is a necessity and not a luxury. Many big organisations spend huge amounts on training. It is a process of increasing the knowledge and skills of an employee for doing a particular job.
Now, lets see a brief distinction between ‘Training’ in the organisation and ‘Education’ at the school/institutional level. Education is generally theoretical whereas training is applied and practical, Education means learning all-around whereas training is learning related to the job and most importantly education is generally broader in nature whereas training is job-related so narrower in nature.

Analysis of the job and its various conditions will indicate the skills and training required to perform the job and there are a few kinds of training programs available for the organisation through which they can select the best for there employees.
1) Induction or orientation Training-
Induction is concerned with the problem of introducing the new employee to the organisation, its policies, etc. The induction is generally informal in case of small firms. When the newly employed person joins the organisation, it is necessary that he should get acquainted with the work environment and give him a general idea about the rules and regulations, working conditions etc.of the organisation.
2) Apprenticeship training
Under this, the trainee is placed under the supervision of an experienced person who teaches him the necessary skills to be applied in the job and observes his performance. The advantage of Apprenticeship training to the ‘trainees’ is that they receive ‘stipend’ while learning and also acquire a valuable skill which commands a good wage in the labour market. Under this type, the trainees not only acquire skills for the single job but for many types of related jobs.
3) Internship training-
This type of training has become quite popular these days. In this, the training is meant for such vocations where advance theoretical knowledge is to be backed up by the practical experience on the job. The period of training varies from six months to two years. For instance, medical students are sent to big hospitals to gain practical knowledge.
4) Refresher training-
It is meant for the old or the existing employees of an organisation. The basic purpose of ‘Refresher training’ is to acquaint the existing workforce with the latest methods of performing their jobs efficiently. The skills with the existing employees become obsolete because of technological changes and also because of the tendency of human beings to forget.

There are many other training programs available to the organisation through which the organisation can remove there deficiencies, support them in the battle of obsolescense and so can make them fit for their jobs !

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