Early return to work program:

Modified work programs designed to get employees who have been out of work due to injury or illness to return to the workforce sooner by providing them with less strenuous alternative jobs until they are able to resume their full regular duties. Returning to work speeds an injured worker's recovery and reduces the financial impact of a workers' compensation claim on the worker, the employer and the workers' compensation system. The key is to act quickly. The Early Return to Work (ERTW) program encourages return‑to‑work options much earlier in the claims process, to everyone‛s benefit.

-Nirmalendu 

Brown Bag Lunch

A brown bag lunch is an informal opportunity for employees to learn at work. A brown bag lunch is used to convey work information occasionally, but mostly serves to enhance employee knowledge about non-work or job specific issues and ideas. Topics for a brown bag lunch range from viewing slides of a coworker's vacation trip to a visit from a local banker to discuss maximizing the potential return that employees can earn by saving.

Brown bag lunch originally referred to the practice of employees bringing a packed lunch from home or carry-out lunch to an informal learning opportunity in the workplace. Brown bag lunch, as a term, has come to represent any brief informal employee education or training opportunity that is supplied during non-work hours at work.

Hence the name, brown bag lunch, recognizes that these may be learning opportunities that are supplied during the employees' lunch break. Brown bag lunch are also held at the beginning or end of a work day, too, and occasionally, during the evening or weekend.

Meera

Hierarchy of rewards and recognition

Today the hierarchy system in rewards and recognition of the organization is gaining concern. For top employees in today’s corporate world salary is not the only motivator whereas it is the total employee rewards that matter. Herzberg’s two factor theory is evidence to this fact. Herzberg differentiated all the factors associated with employee motivation into two:

1.      Hygiene factors

2.      True motivators

Hygiene factors are those factors at a workplace, when absent creates employee dissatisfaction but at the same time do not effectuate employee motivation when they are present. These are those elements that merely restrict dissatisfaction from creeping into the organization. Thus, the hygiene factors only affect job dissatisfaction and will not have any influence on the job satisfaction. These factors will not create positive motivation or pave way for positive job engagement or retention. The hygiene elements include pay, security, status, peer relationships, subordinate and supervisor relationships, company policy and administration, work conditions, and supervision. 

Rewards and recognition given to the employees also have a great impact on the satisfaction of each and every employee be it at any level of hierarchy. While designing rewards and recognition an HR manager should keep in mind the concept of “equality” also. If employees feel that they are being treated unfairly, it will affect the second factor of the Herzberg theory i.e. Motivation factors.

While this is so, there are other elements as well that directly result in actively motivating the employees. These factors when absent may or may not result in job dissatisfaction but when present they will greatly motivate the employees and facilitate employee engagement and retention. True motivating factors that result in extreme job satisfaction are achievement, recognition, the work itself, responsibility, advancement, and opportunities for growth.Organizations that focus on giving fair treatment to employee in case of designing rewards have a more people oriented approach.

image source: http://thelanterngroup.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/rr-components-red.png

Athira unni

ERISA (Employment Retirement Income Security Act)

A federal law that governs pension and welfare employee benefit plans. ERISA requires plans to provide participants with plan information including plan features and funding. It also requires that plans provide fiduciary responsibilities for those who manage and control assets. It gives participants the right to sue for benefits and breaches of fiduciary duty.

Arjun

Balanced Scorecard

A strategic planning and management system that is used to tie business activities to the vision and strategy of the organization, improve internal and external communications, and monitor performance against goals. Developed in the early 1990's by Drs. Robert Kaplan and David Norton, the balanced scorecard measure four areas of business: internal business processes, financial performance, customer knowledge, and learning and growth.

- Sachin V

Human resources executives seek labor law reforms

“The HR professional is usually the bearer of bad news when it comes to terminations, disciplinary action or wage negotiations. So to an ordinary workman, particularly a misguided one, he represents the face of the organization. Workers are often unable to tell that the HR manager is simply executing decisions taken by a collective leadership, and he is not responsible for them.”

-Santrupt Misra, director, global HR at the Aditya Birla Group

Times have changed and surely we have come a long way compared to the times of legendary strikes. HR was considered to be an easy and safe job by many. And many a times HR personnel are considered to be a negotiator between the company and its employees.

HR department is considered to be the interface between the management and the employees. Thus often they become the carriers of bad news. This is when the relation between the HR person and the employees get ugly.

Maruti’s Manesar issue is not the first of its kind. In the past also such incidents have occured.

Now-a-days HR is considered to be one of the toughest and most unsafe areas to work in. It is high time to make the employees realize that the decision making power does not lie with the HR but it is the joint decision of the top management. Employees also needs to understand that killing someone does not solve the issue but only worsens it.

 Following the brutal killing of Awanish Kumar Dev, the HR manager at Maruti's Manesar plant, human resources (HR) heads across the country have gone into a huddle. Shocked and shaken, the community is rallying together to push for various kinds of reforms to protect themselves against such attacks in future.

The National HRD Network (NHRDN), condemned Dev's murder and said it plans to lobby with other industry bodies - the Employees Federation of India (EFI), Ficci and CII - to press the HRD ministry for safer working conditions in plants and factories.

Another reason for taking up such safety measures is that HR heads are concerned that these attacks will deter youngsters from taking up the factory stint. Therefore it's high time the country had a code of conduct for regulating employment.

source:http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-07-27/news/32889428_1_hr-heads-hr-professionals-hr-manager

Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR)

An informal process to resolve disputes. Involved parties meet with a trained third party who assists in resolving the problem by arbitration, mediation, judicial settlement conferences, conciliation or other methods. Though usually voluntary, ADR is sometimes mandated by a judge as a first step before going to court. 

Image source: http://daytonaero.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/alternate_dispute_resolution.jpg

-Sachin V

Agile Organization

Also known as agile manufacturing, this is a term applied to an organization that has created the processes, tools, and training to enable it to respond quickly to customer needs and market changes while still controlling costs and quality. 

Image source:http://leadinganswers.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834527c1469e2011168671b4a970c-320wi

-Sachin V

GREEN RECRUITING

Recruiting is the most important function of HR, which entails attracting the right person for the right job at the right time, is changing its color. Organizations are trying to tap every bit of opportunity, wanting to look different and make a good impression, so that the right candidates with the environment friendly bent of mind apply for jobs.
Green Recruiting was coined by ‘John Sullivan’ in June 2007.It is an innovative idea through which companies leverage their environmental stance, using it as an important strategy for recruitment. There has been a sharp increase in number of companies that are joining the Green recruiting bandwagon.
Green Recruitment means a paper-free recruitment process with a minimal environmental impact. Applications are invited through online mediums like e-mail, online application forms or the Global Talent Pool. It also includes telephone or video-based interviews which are conducted to minimize any travel-related environmental impact.

Examples:
Google and Timberland have made concreted efforts in portraying themselves as environment friendly organizations, having programs that support environmental issues .The programs includes extending $ 5,000 subsidies for employee who buy hybrid cars , dining facilities that serve organic food, charitable contributions to organizations that fight global warming .
Reasons behind this concept:
The examples of companies such as Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, Bhopal Gas Tragedy by Union Carbide , Hudson and Housatonic river pollution by General Electric killing thousands of people which dented the company’s image affecting sales, employee’s confidence and ability to recruit good candidates.

According to a study conducted by Stanford Graduate School 2007, 77% of the MBA graduates are willing to forgo some income to work for a company that have a strong environment strategy in place.

80% of current employees want to work for a “good company” (one that has a good reputation for environmental responsibility) and this percentage is expected to grow to 90% in the next 10 years. (Corporate Environmental Behavior and the Impact on Brand Values – Tandberg, 2007.)

The time has come for all the employers to assess the degree of Greenness in which they operate .Organizations like Green Biz Check are helping companies to assess their energy conservation’s , water consumption reduction, waste reduction and even going to the extent of Bronze, Silver and Gold Levels of Green Business Certifications.
Green Recruiting provides the company with an opportunity to stand out from the rest of the pack in a crowded recruiting landscape.HR Managers can win Brownie points by taking to Green Recruiting. Green Recruiting is here to stay and will definitely give a competitive edge for head hunters.

Bibliography:
Arvamudhan,NR. “Green Recruitment”. HRM Review IUP Publications(March 2010)
source for image: http://www.gophoto.it/view.php?i=http://www.bestpracticeboard.com/greenrecruiting/email_files/image001.png#.UGU-EqBqCuI

- Shiva Subramanian

Succession planning

Succession planning is a systematic process whereby an organization ensures that employees are identified, recruited, assessed and developed to prepare them for advancement or promotion into more challenging roles within the company. The succession planning process needs to be considered as part of the company's strategic planning process because it deals with projecting future changes by anticipating management vacancies and then determining how to meet these challenges.

Advantages/Benefits of Succession Planning
a. There is an ongoing supply of well trained, broadly experienced, well-motivated people who are ready and able to step into key positions as needed.

b. Availability of appropriate resources within the company to conform to the future needs of the company.

c. A continuous stream of people who are constantly reviewing, questioning and refining procedures and processes, helping to improve the quality inside the company, as well as improving the offerings of the company out in the market place.

d. An increasing reputation as a good, challenging, stimulating place to work, which could result in your ability to hire better people.

- Anju Mary Mathews.

Business Continuity Planning

A management process that seeks to identify potential threats and impacts to the organization. They provide a strategic and operational framework for ensuring the organization is able to withstand any disruption or loss to normal business function or operation. 

- Renu Radhakrishnan

Reverse mentoring

It is a type of workplace-mentor relationship. The mentor in a reverse-mentor relationship is younger than his or her mentee with substantially less seniority in the organization. Conversely, the mentee is the older of the two and is well-established in his or her position within the company. Reverse mentoring works in all industries but may demonstrate the most effective results in professional fields where technology is an integral part of the work environment but is not the central focus of the work. This environment is conducive to knowledge sharing between mentor and mentee using the mentor's deeply en-grained familiarity and comfort with basic computer skills.

- Vivek Joy

Human Capital Management

 The challenge of recruiting and retaining qualified candidates, and helping new employees fit into an organization. The goal is to keep employees contributing to the organizations intellectual capital by offering competitive salary, benefits and development opportunities. The major functions of human capital management include Recruitment, Compensation, Benefits and Training.
-Sruthi Lal

Welcome all the Batch 20 PGDM HR students to this blog. Active participation from each and every member is expected.