The document discusses issues faced in organizations and proposes ways to improve organizational culture. It suggests that organizations should see employees as more than just cogs and evolve to be more inclusive of people. It advocates using positive language at work to create a better environment. The document also emphasizes measuring employee happiness to gauge organizational success and providing intrinsic motivation beyond just pay hikes.
2. Introduction
With more and more emerging entrepreneurs around us it has become really
necessary to question, understand and evolve our idea of an organisation. This applies
irrespective of the organisation being a tech or finance startup or a not for profit
organisation.
Businesses have been run for years based on strategies of management experts quite
successfully. So what makes me look at our view of an organisation again? The way we
perceive work is changing rapidly. Businesses existing independent of the people
functioning in them or simply put cogs in the wheel thinking is becoming obsolete.
Sometimes, even an hour may teach us more than a year. I think having a brief but
intense and engaging experience in professional environment allows me to share my
thoughts with you.
People matter and it is time organisations evolve their culture to be more inclusive
towards people.
These four articles are an endeavour to share with you my thoughts on common
issues faced in organisations and sometimes not talked about being perceived of as
unsolvable. The views shared are entirely personal.
- Heramb Sukhathankar
06th
April 2016
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3. 1. The Right Words
A simple way to creating an interesting workspace involves
more than just the interiors and ergonomics. It definitely
includes something as obvious and ordinary as using the right
words.
Often we end up calling "needs" as "problems", just like labelling "concern" as
"tension". Over a period of time this usage makes the work environment weary and
negative: imagine employees having visible clouds of tension and problems over their
heads and ending up devoting all their energy and ability to thoughts which aren t
really part of the task at hand. And this habit then unknowingly slowly seeps into the
personal lives of employees and returns back to the workspace again. Now the
employees are working with two clouds of tension, personal and professional, trying
hard to make sense of tasks.
Thus an important part of the workspace, unfortunately ignored and forgotten, is the
careful use of words. Think about how easily everyone terms "difference of opinion" as
"politics". Observe the words which are taking a toll on work effectiveness and start
replacing these with better alternatives. Along with the choice of right interiors and
ergonomic environment, evolving workspaces need words which, if do not contribute
to work efficiency, at least don t hamper work. So, do we have problems or there are
just situations we must deal with?
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4. 2. Creativity in HR
Any organisation to be successful needs to change its
perspective from using people to using their skills. A human
resource is always more than the sum total of his or her skills.
The organisation level perception of Human Resource Team ranges somewhere
between non-productive liability for the management and for the employees as
management drones left in the company to spy over them.
Battling in midst of these opinions and the views, the role of HR Team if undermined
can spell a disaster for any organisation.
HR manages a resource which is, unarguably, the most valued and complex resource:
people. Managing such a crucial resource must certainly involve an element of
creativity.
What does creativity mean here?
Creativity implies looking at each situation with a fresh vision, clear of any prejudices,
beliefs and considering each person in the organisation as unique. Easier said than
done, this will help explore the potential within each unique employee effectively
more than any other approach.
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5. 3. What s Your Organisational HQ?
If the everyday work is not interesting, challenging, motivating
enough the results will also be so. Your organisation will deliver
strongly only to the extent of your unhappiest employee.
Believing that you already have KRAs, KPAs, KPIs and other (god knows how many!)
indexes in place to manage employee performance and consequently a healthy
company purse, I have no intention of burdening you with another
performance/productivity index.
HQ or Happiness Quotient is the simplest and most challenging way to measure an
organisation s success. Don t believe what I say, apply this to any organisation that is
successful in your view.
What is HQ?
We need to be careful in defining Happiness Quotient in an organisation s context. As
the happiness of a person is influenced by many factors, we need to ask Are
employees happy to work in my organisation? instead of Are the employees happy?
But happiness being subjective how do we really measure HQ objectively?
Observe a few objective parameters like punctuality (manual entries or through the
biometric access control), frequency of employee s mistakes, participation intra-
organisational activities and every other measurable factor, you think is important,
which reflects the employee s attitude towards the organisation. Now observe, think
and work on each of these factors which affect your employee s attitude positively.
The actual HQ implementation varies for each workspace. It has to be worked out at
the desk level and can rarely be found in a book.
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6. 4. Motivation Myth
Often while needing motivation, we get so engrossed in reading,
watching and listening ABOUT motivation that we forget motivation
fundamentally comes through doing actual work. Just as swimming is the
best way to learn swimming.
Be it at individual or organisational level, motivation is a hot selling cake. Many
thousand million copies of best-selling books have been sold on motivation and yet
management and employees are always looking out for the next best motivation
strategy. What makes them hanker for it?
Let us understand this fact clearly: the most obvious reason majority of people work
for is to support their own and their dependents needs. So here comes the most
obvious motivator organisations use: appraisals or- pay hikes. As the D-Day
approaches, employee performance goes up and either sustains itself for a short
period, rises or deteriorates depending on the appraisal received.
If pay hikes are the only motivator in your organisation, the corporate purse will always
be tugged at and this is the last thing an organisation really wants.
Motivating employees should not be just an induction day or appraisal day affair. It
needs to be worked at all the time, whenever needed.
An organisation which is working towards long term success has to shift its objective
from extracting the best out of their employees to creating an environment for
employees to do their best .
Let s take an example. One of your employees is working hard to save for his child s
overseas education. But he knows his salary hike won t be able to take care of it. Also
the employee is not so tech-savvy or aware about the opportunities available. Trying
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7. to figure out how your employees goals fit in the organisation s goal and tuning both
of them to match each other is an amazing skill which can give motivation another
meaning altogether. Can you do something, not necessarily financial, which will help
reduce the burden of employee s expenses? Possibly you can help him with a
resource person who could guide the child for a scholarship or maybe one of your
relatives abroad needs a companion at home and doesn t care for the rent.
Hope you liked these articles. If you would like to share your
views or comments on these articles or more such issues
pertaining to changing role of an organisation, write to me
at connectinsight@gmail.com.
I would be glad to hear from you.
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8. About the Author
Heramb Mahesh Sukhathankar is an author & poet from Mumbai, Maharashtra. His
interests include Photography, Cycling and India Classical Music. He blogs
on www.insightstories.in.
His self-published books मढी, वॉचमन व इतर लघुकथा and Untold Stories of Love have
been well received by the readers.
Presently he is working on his debut English poetry collection and novel.
You can write to him on connectinsight@gmail.com.
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9. Also by the Author
The place and time where stories may take birth is always indefinite. Some stories
were born in this manner. With immense joy I share with you these stories in the book
"मढी, वॉचमन व इतर लघुकथा".
Download
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10. These are not-so-pink love stories, not the happily-lived-ever-after ones. Here are
stories that talk about love as is, no cosmetics.
Download
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