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Thursday 22 December 2011

Hiring of Right Person ...


Last week I was a Guest Speaker at a renowned university and during the session one student asked me what is one main trait that you usually explore, is in the right candidate while interviewing?  

And we usually hear that right person on the right job but who is the right person? At that time I could not answer her satisfactorily because there are so many factors which influence the decision for right person while on interview. So I started to research on that & figured out the following traits of the right person. 

Integrity
It is the core strength of any right person, it comes before anything like education, Personality, soft skills etc. Well to judge integrity of a person, it’s easy if you are going to hire employee internally as you must have his/ her employment records with you .But if you are going to hire a person from outside then you have to conduct his reference check , Social media checks & his views about his previous employers in personal interview. 

Trust worthiness
Trust worthiness is encompassing on competence & responsibility, if any one factor will be missing then person will not remain trust worthy. For instance someone is very competent & knowledgeable in his domain but s/he is irregular so such person can’t be a trustworthy because s/he is not responsible .It is the trustworthiness which make you inimitable from others .So while hiring a person one should focus on trustworthiness of candidate & judge from both scenarios s  i.e. Competence & responsibility .

Intelligence
Intelligence does not mean to solve some mathematical problems or high marks in IQ test. Here we relate intelligence with quality of questions asked by the candidate. In other words how much interview was interactive with candidate or it were only a straight interview in which interviewer asks questions & candidate only answer to these questions. If a candidate is showing interest in your organization & asking that what sort of challenges are prevailing for the position?  What is your expectation form the new incumbent?  What are future plans of organization for further growth? etc.

Maturity & resilience
Maturity can be attained, by the way, in any age. An 18 year old person can be immature and a seven year child can be matured. It is the circumstances, decisions and hardships which make a person matured & develop the quality of resilience against odds. Maturity will be showing from one’s sense of humor & family back ground. So must asked about one’s life hardships of life & how one overcomes against these odds.

Positive Energy & Enthusiasm
Again the most crucial thing which should be taken into account while hiring; it is positive energy & enthusiasm shown by the candidate. It is the positive energy & one’s enthusiasm which boosts the whole team energy into positivity. 

Gut Feeling
We can’t take it for granted, may be all of the above mentioned points  have been fulfilling the requirements but if you have any unusual or unrest feeling deep down then don’t hire the person. If you have “something still missing feeling” about any candidate then don’t hire the person.  And it should be clear to you that your decision is not based on any biases. Because if you were to hire a person against your feeling, your future working relationship may not be healthy and the decision making in any sense will get affected.

By : Syed Shahzad Ali 
HR Expert

Wednesday 14 December 2011

Gleaming Facts About 5 Day Working In A Week

Yesterday I received a personal query from my one group member on HR Professional’s Network that how five day working can be beneficial for any organization specially for manufacturing / production concern ? and what are the ways to implement 5 days working in the organization while they are working 6 days a week ? Well more than a decade back into economic reforms, China used to have a standard 6-day work week. Then the entire country switched to a 5-day work week in 1995. It does not seem to have had a negative effect on the economy but China has achieved non-stop growth of 10% annually and still so forth . Plummeting the number of working hours does not entail that less work will be get done, or that output will be declined . It depends upon quality of work & level of commitment furnished by workers in 5 day working . 

But before getting such corner stone specially in manufacturing concern , HR has to figure out the current efficiency level of the organization & after getting an agreement on certain raise in an efficiency of organization by Operation Head , Production , supply chain and other stake holders on the less working hours it can be done easily. Everyone has to take his responsibility to make sure the promised output.

For Manufacturing or Production concern we can have rotating off days during the week for the production people or can have 1 or 2 mandatory days off which can be taken by mutual understanding of the employee and his/her supervisor. Another option that is to have alternate weekends off, this is implemented commonly in several companies in the manufacturing / production sector. To accommodate production needs, we may still need to operate the factory on the 6th day, but we can arrange shifts. Or save more money by operating 5 days for longer hours, with 2 shifts.

Following are the some benefits and advantages which can be derived by five day working in a week .
• Work Stress will be diminished on employees.
• More pressure they will be taken for maximum output because they will be enjoying 2 off in a week .
• While the obvious impact of 5 day week is the reduction in overhead costs(transportation, utilities, meal ,tea etc),
• It also reduces the number of off days taken by the employees, turn over and absenteeism ultimately increase the attendance ratio
• Certainly an unique attraction for right candidates as well as the a great retention tool for current employees
• Employees will be Saving the transportation and clothing cost
• Employees will be feel valued then it will bring employee engagement in return.
• It will flourish the positivity in the environment of organization
• Work life balance will emerge.
• It will give an edge to organization on competitors.

Without any doubt, I do affirm that if employees do work for 54 hours, then they will be tired, they will be less productive, they will be more likely to have accidents, socially distressed, and to get sick and take time off. So by strenuous and not engage workers one can have waning returns only.We should provide emplyees such environment that every day employees should not push themselves to go on work rather they estatic to get on work on time every sweetand shiny  morning.

By: Syed Shahzad Ali
HR Expert

Monday 12 December 2011

Don't Try To Defeat ... Try to Win!!!



Why do we think to cut down our expenses rather think about increasing our income? Similarly 80 % of the people always think about the minor or negative perspective first .Before starting anything people usually think about the failure or the negative perspective rather than thinking how can they avoid failure? And because of the fear of failure they never start a new project or business with the thought of success or win and somebody else does the same thing as they thought and win the reward. And this happens for so small things in life; For e.g. when we do receive a call at mid-night, why we start getting negative thoughts first. It is maybe naturally we are prone to go negative at first and maybe positive later.

Why do we try to defeat people and not win or rather think to win them? We have a supersonic computer given by God which is swiftest than an any other machine or computer in the universe, it is our brain. The belief or the invincible affirmation that you will give to your brain, your brain will derive your attitude, actions & behaviors derive accordingly. We should expect the best and we should keep practicing this habit. Because repetition is the mother of skill. We have to plug our brain with positivity and invincible affirmations so that positive vibes can be generated through it, for that reason there is a need to align our eyes & brain, so that synchronization can be created. It is limited to us that what we observe, I am not talking about see the things as they are because seeing the things is not deliberate part but what we observe through our eyes is a deliberate part and it stores in our brain . Our eyes & brain is like an empty box; we can make it dustbin by accumulating garbage and can make it a vase by accumulating flowers .So we should always try to win people by our actions, thoughts, gesture & posture. When we will always think about winning them, then our brain will derive our actions as a winner. We should not think about others defeat or to defeat someone but we should omit the word defeat from our life’s dictionary. One can sum up his life way out by just applying a simple formula that is “Never Try to Defeat, Try to Win” and you may see miracles happening.

By : Syed Shahzad Ali
HR Expert

Thursday 8 December 2011

8 Invincible Factors Of Winning Team


Following are the eighths points which found in all winning teams and these are the characteristics of any winning team .

1)  Bring Forth Unpleasant and Repulsive Information:
In the winning teams , every team member never hesitate or rickety to bring forth any unpleasant information & evidence on the table about the organisation & share the same with leader . Winning teams figure out the shared way out against every unpleasant information and confront the brutal facts . Leader appreciate all those members who bring such repulsive piece of information where as teams to way down usually remain bit scary and reluctant to bring forth any such information which make the team unrest and everybody would have been waiting for other team member to reveal unpleasant information. In teams to way down, members usually consider culprit to all those who bring forth the repulsive information within the team.

2)  Arguments Persist with Evidence & Facts
In the teams way up arguments persist with evidence and facts . Discussions impetus in concrete way towards its logical way out with define time lines where as on the other hand in the teams way down strong opinions has been furnished by the team members without considering and understanding facts and figures.

3)  Unification Behind The Decision
Team is unify behind the every decision taken with mutual consent , once it’s been taken collectively then every team members accept it and work for it success. On the contrary team to way down not unified behind the taken decisions mostly they show their agreement on the decision taken but not faithfully accept it so they don’t work for its success.

4)  Don’t Argument To Be Super Star
In team meetings team members don’t make arguments to prove own self a super star , they don’t put upfront their personal interest rather promote the organisational interest at large

5)  Question To Statement Ratio :
During discussion leader raise lot of question-to-statements to put the team in brain storming & penetrate to the insights of discussions where as the leader of team way down don’t ask much question-to-statements , don’t take interest in discussion.

6)  Give Credit To Other
The winning team members give credit to other team members for the their success , team success is more crucial than personal success.

7)  Autopsies Without Blaming
Winning teams do autopsies without blaming external factors , other team mates or anything rather they learn lessons from their mistakes and pain areas.

8)  Exceptional Performers
One of the crucial part of winning team is that they have exceptional performer all the time , even in the case of setback they focus on experience rather failure , they rate performance against satisfactory & unsatisfactory rather good Or bad .This is one thing which make the difference between winning team & others .


By: Syed Shahzad Ali 
HR Expert In Pakistan