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

Employee Engagement Activities for Managing High Performance

Research shows that Employee Engagement is directly proportional to the Organizational growth i.e. the maximum an employee will be engaged with the organization the more that Organization will grow.

Employee engagement is more than satisfaction & motivation but once engagement will bring in , satisfaction & motivation will emerge automatically by itself, in fact , these two will be a bi-product of employee engagement. Effusive Engaged employees work for the success & vision of the organization . It is all about development of Disciplined people, Disciplined Thought & Disciplined action by the inception of employee engagement activities. Because once you have disciplined People ,you don’t need “Hierarchies” ; when You have Disciplined thought in your engaged employees , you don’t need “Bureaucracy” and when you have a disciplined action people , you don’t need “Excessive Controls” on the engaged employees.

Employee engagement can’t be developed with money factor for that reason employer has to cover an extra mile & develop empathy not only with the employee but also with their families as well . Followings are some innovative & effective employee engagement activities for managing high performances .

• Appreciation Letter/ shield for Mother / Family Members for employee High performance.

• Birthday Cake & Gift on employee & his dependants.

• Half day on employee Marriage Anniversary with Dinner vouchers.

• Specified Fund for Team Dinner Dept Wise.

• Extra Holiday on Eid by company other than Gazette Holidays

• HR Manager / HOD visit on Child Birth at Home.

• Movie of the Month .

• Professional Trainings without any bond .

• Family Get –to- Gather .

• Ramzan Gift Packs .

• Flexi Hours inception.

• Indulge domestic benefits like Monthly Water Supply.

• Lunch with CEO .

• In-house recreational Activities like Swimming Pool, Table Tennis, Snooker ETC

• Parents Health Coverage.

As a result of the above innovative & effective employee engagement activities, the growth of the Organization will be self apparent and no will have to pin point the success that the organization will enjoy as a combined unit.

SIx Sigma in HR

Six Sigma originated as a set of practices designed to improve manufacturing processes and eliminate defects, but its application was subsequently extended to HR and other types of business processes as well. In Six Sigma, a defect is defined as any process output that does not meet customer specifications, or that could lead to creating an output that does not meet customer specifications and in HR defects defined as follows;

• Extended time taken to fill the position and adverse recruitment.

• Performance less Appraisals and bonus distribution.

• Unsubstantiated TNAs for Organization by HR

• Policies not aligned with Organizational Environment , Mission & Business Practices etc.

The idea of Six Sigma was actually “born” a Motorola in the 1970s, when senior executive Art Sundry was criticizing Motorola’s bad quality. Through this criticism, the company discovered the connection between increasing quality and decreasing costs in the production process. Before, everybody thought that quality would cost extra money. In fact, it was reducing costs, as costs for repair or control sank. Then, Bill Smith first formulated the particulars of the methodology at Motorola in 1986;

The DMAIC project methodology has five phases:

• Define the problem, the voice of the customer, and the project goals, specifically.

• Measure key aspects of the current process and collect relevant data.

• Analyze the data to investigate and verify cause-and-effect relationships. Determine what the relationships are, and attempt to ensure that all factors have been considered. Seek out root cause of the defect under investigation.

• Improve or optimize the current process based upon data analysis using techniques such as design of experiments mistake proofing, and standard work to create a new, future state process. Set up pilot runs to establish process capability

• Control the future state process to ensure that any deviations from target are corrected before they result in defects. Implement control systems such as statistical process control, production boards, and visual workplaces, and continuously monitor the process.

By adopting DMAIC approach in HR for implementing Six Sigma;

 • HR has to devise such policies & follows the such practices that enhance the employees performance quality and creativity without incurring the extra dollar.

• Employ such work force that they take the responsibility rather than doing a Job. Once you have best people under your belt then HR does not need to motivate people because best people are self motivated and they perform responsibilities than Job.

• HR must create a cost centers for every activity so that ROI should be calculated along with performance assessment.

• Once you a have concrete results with cost centers then we have an every opportunity to optimize our current practices as per six sigma standards.

• Construct an HR metrics against every HR activity to control & make it accountable.

• Implement the MBOs ( Management By Objectives) instead of conventional PMS System and evaluate the assigned objectives on monthly basis .

• Performance base reward system evolution .

• Correlated the MBOs performance based promotions to succession planning .

by : Syed Shahzad Ali

HR Expert in Pakistan

Innovative HR Practices - Vacation Donation

The Basic idea behind that every employee will forego/ donate his/ her one leave atleast from their availiable leave account. The purpose of vacation donation is to provide financial assistance during approved unpaid leaves related to life-threatening illness or injury of self or immediate family members, for childbirth, adoption and foster care placement or death of an immediate family member. This policy visibly demonstrates the one Organizations commitment to work/life integration.The Basic idea behind that every employee will forego/ donate his/ her one leave atleast from their availiable leave account.

Eligibility & SOP ( Proposed may be Alter as per Need of Organizaton )
A. The recipient may request to receive donated vacation to provide care for their own or an immediate family member’s life threatening or terminal illness or injury. The use of donated vacation may also be requested for the birth, adoption or foster placement of a child or for the death of an immediate family member.
B. The recipient must have a regular appointment that is eligible to accrue sick time and must have exhausted all paid leave balances before using donated vacation.
B. Sick and compensatory time may not be donated.
C. Donated vacation can only be applied for after unpaid leave is approved.
D. The recipient may use up to 4 weeks of donated vacation time (up to160 hours, prorated based on FTE).

E. Donated vacation may not be used to exceed the recipient’s normally scheduled work hours per pay period and must be donated in 8-hour increments.
F. Leave taken using donated vacation may not be counted in the calculation of unpaid leave balances.
G. Donated vacation may run concurrently with Family Medical Leave.
H Donated vacation hours are converted into an equivalent number of sick time hours.
I. Unused donated vacation hours are forfeited and will not be returned to the donor.