5 ways to leverage your internship
Internship is a great opportunity to build a platform from which to launch your career, provided you make the best use of it. There are numerous ways you can get value out of your internship, among others, you can gain relevant work experience, meet interesting people, pick up new skills and beef up your CV. Here I will share top five ways you can leverage your internship.
Grow your network
The best thing about being an intern is that you get the chance to meet with industry people - face to face. But don’t stop in just meeting them, start conversations and build relationships. Talk with them about the industry, share your ideas, passion and career aspirations, take advice, ask questions. Remember, networking is not just about knowing people, it’s also about getting value out of that relationship at the same time.
Learn, learn and learn
I repeat, learn, learn and learn. You might be a summa cum laude, but most probably this being your first real job you have very limited practical experience. So this is your chance to learn the real deal. Gather as much information, knowledge, experience you can. Do not limit yourself only to job related tasks, learn about the art of formal communication, customer service skills and office technologies. Don’t feel shy to ask. It’s early days of your career and the best time to ask (stupid) questions.
Observe your environment
Open your eyes, ears and mind and closely observe the workplace. Take note how people communicate, how they build and maintain relationships, how they manage time, multitask and meet deadlines, how they handle pressure and difficult situations, how they work in team environments. Observe and take lessons. You will be in the same shoes, today or tomorrow.
Give your best
It’s a no brainer really. Strive your best and stand out from the crowd. Even if you are asked to do things which you don’t particularly enjoy doing, do not make it apparent. Unlike seasoned professionals, you don’t have the luxury of having long work history or job related achievements to boast about and the only way you can earn credibility from your colleagues is by putting hard work and showing enthusiasm. If you have some free time, ask a co-worker whether he needs a hand. Always show your interest in trying out new things and willingness to learn.
Discover thyself
Perhaps the best thing that you can take out from your internship is discovering yourself. Are you enjoying your work? Do the job roles meet your expectations? Can you see yourself doing this for the foreseeable future? What particular aspects of work you like and don’t like? Do you think there is a niche for you? Do you need to brush up on certain skills? Ask these questions and make your career choice.
[I originally wrote this piece for my younger brother who is starting his internship next week.]
Do you ‘hear’ your employees?
One of the important factors towards creating a motivated, committed and most importantly, an involved workforce is having proper employee voice system in place. To keep things simple, by voice I mean all forms of opportunities (including participation) where employees can have their say and exert some influence on the organization’s decision making process.
Research shows that voice has mediating effects on employee attitudes and behavior which in turn results in higher employee engagement, lower turnover and consequently positive organizational performance. And not to mention, employee voice is also critical from the perspective of social legitimacy.
Direct and indirect voice
Voice could be both direct and indirect. Direct voice ranges from simple daily face-to-face meetings, email, intranet to more formal attitude surveys, teams and other problem solving groups. Whereas indirect voice includes unions, employee representative meetings, works councils, joint consultative committees etc. Research suggests that combination of direct and indirect forms (i.e. ‘dual’ voice systems) is linked to superior organizational performance.
Discretionary effort and performance improvement
Voice gives employees the means to express their opinions and concerns. When employees realize that their voice is heard and management acts upon them, this creates the much needed trust, commitment and job satisfaction and employees are more likely to offer their support and discretionary effort, which ultimately leads to improved productivity and performance.
Handy during change
Voice is also important for successful management of change. Employees are aware of what is happening and why, and they can communicate their concerns and ideas which positively contribute to the change program.
Better and informed decisions
Employees are rich source of shop-floor knowledge and a good voice system ensures such knowledge are channeled properly. If management can incorporate workforce tacit knowledge in their decision making process, they are more likely to make better judgements and informed decisions.
Keep conflicts at bay
Also because voice allows employees to express their dissatisfaction and concern before it’s too late, conflict can be averted and more effective and timely solution can be reached. Such peaceful settlement means there is less chance of disruptive behavior and firms can potentially avoid financial distress.
Developing voice
When developing and encouraging employee voice, it is important not to consider voice as merely a fashionable fad. Clear expectations regarding outcomes of voice regime should be established. At the same time it must be remembered that if employee voice is disconnected from organizational decision making, there is a high possibility that this might eventually lose appeal and become short lived.
Some questions to be addressed when designing voice scheme:
- What goals to achieve?
- How much say or participation is envisaged in the scheme?
- Over what sort of decisions?
- What type of voice? Direct, indirect or both?
- Who is involved and, if a representative, how elected or selected?
Employee voice is a sensitive issue and source of much tension and debate. Careful consideration is paramount when designing and introducing such measure, and from the onset, management must make it clear what could be expected out of such scheme. Most importantly, management must listen and act on the information they receive, because end of the day, voice is meaningless if the message is ignored.
Photo credit: SandyAbrams
Strategic HRM
A lot has been said over the years about the need for HR to become strategic, or more popularly, have a seat in the table. But what does Strategic HRM (SHRM) actually mean? What’s the significance?
To start with, SHRM is more than just slapping the word ’strategic’ in front of typical HR functions like recruitment, retention, pay or learning and development. This is a rather narrow view and fails to capture the underlying concept of SHRM. In broad terms, strategic HRM is a process where organizations HR practices are designed and implemented to complement the overall business strategy of the firm. i.e. SHRM operates with an eye always on the organization’s end objectives.
As you might have noted, I mentioned SHRM as a process. This is important. As Boxall and Purcell discuss in their widely acclaimed book titled Strategy and Human Resource Management, strategy is not a one-off long-term plan; its a process where organizations continuously make strategic choices from a range of available options. This concept of strategy as process is critical to HR, since HR, like any other business functions works in a dynamic socio-political context and there is always a need to reinterpret situations and readjust to the constantly changing environment. And this has been acknowledged by studies where it was found that most high performing firms attributed their success to flexible and responsive short-term strategies, the so called ‘emergent strategies’, rather than sticking to long-term planning. Such strategic management process means that firms are better in responding to unstable environments and able to react when it is most needed.This is especially true if we take the current volatile markets in consideration; today’s full-proof strategy might very well be obsolete tomorrow. To survive, and better still, to sustain competitive advantage firms need to be always on their toes.
Now let’s see how HR strategies can actually be aligned with or complement firm’s business strategy [this concept of alignment is generally known as 'vertical fit']. Say for example, your company’s overall business objective is to achieve sustained competitive advantage in a specific market segment by constantly pumping out new products that none of your competitors currently offer; i.e. the firm is adopting a strategy of innovation and product differentiation. So in this case, HR’s strategy will be to create and nurture a work culture where among others, employees are given more discretion, encouraged to take risks, exercise creativity, work collaboratively and share new ideas for which they are rewarded accordingly.
That means HR strategy is working in tandem with company’s market strategy. And for that to happen, your HR decisions, no matter how small or big they are, have to be directed to that strategic goal. As it has been said earlier, strategy is not a one-off policy document that senior management prepares only in the boardroom. Those days are long gone. It’s very difficult to survive with such strategic concepts nowadays. While taking strategic decisions, you have to be flexible, agile and make the most of the human and social capital of your institution through a participatory approach.
Another important point to note before I finish off, organization’s HR strategies are not always homogeneous. Various HR systems work simultaneously within the organization and thus there can be different HR strategies in action at any given time and context. For example, your retention strategy for head office senior management will not be the same as retention strategy for showroom salespersons. Two group of employees, albeit working in the same organization, operate in two very different contexts and so the strategies need to be tailored.
In coming weeks I plan to talk about some other relevant topics on strategic HRM such as strategic models, high performance systems, employee voice, best practice and best fit debate etc.
Better stay tuned!
Photo credit: HikingArtist.com
Google Wave, collaboration and HR
Google Wave, Google’s latest offering is indeed creating quite a wave in the technology world. Armed with groundbreaking and innovative features, the Wave is set to alter the conventional communication practices.
If you haven’t heard about Wave yet, here is an abridged version of the keynote presentation.
At first glance, Wave might seem like yet another social media dashboard, but that will be a big mistake. For starter, Wave is not just a product, it’s a protocol and it has all the potentials to replace the traditional email protocols like IMAP, POP3 or SMTP. It could indeed be a killer app.
But having said that, Wave is still in development phase and none can say for certain ultimately how much impact it will make. However what we do know is, it will be open source and given the large fan base of Google, it may very well be the de facto standard for net based communication.
So what does it have to do with HR?
Well, one of the key issues that HR will have to come to terms with in coming days is workplace collaboration. Organizations becoming flatter, businesses spreading around the continents and there is an increasing need for organizations to be flexible, adaptive and agile in the face of uncertain business environments. To survive and thrive in such unpredictable territory, greater collaboration among employees, employers, shareholders, customers, suppliers and various stakeholders is imperative.
But creating a collaborative culture is not a walk in the park. It’s a continuous journey that demands major shift in the mind-set of all concerned and new ways of managing work. And for that to happen, it requires necessary tools - tools that enable collaboration.
And this is where Wave comes into play. The importance lies not only on Google Wave as a tool, but also the benchmark it sets. It introduces a new way of collaborative communication that is real time, flexible, robust and readily accessible - something collaborative work culture thrives on.
But as I have said already, Wave is still in development phase and not yet available for the masses. The good news is, Google has announced to send out 100,000 invites from September 30. So if you want to be part of the early testers of Wave, sign up here for updates.
Additional resources:
Google Wave - What does it mean for Recruiting?
Google Wave for Recruiting? What are the possiblities?
A video demonstration of using Wave for recruitment
Michael Specht talks about Google Wave and the Enterprise.
Steve Boese talks about Shareflow - another collaboration tool that gives you a feel of Wave.
And if you still want to delve further, check out PyGoWave - a rudimentary open-source Google Wave server.
Decentralized HR
Gautam Ghosh posted an interesting blog post the other day where he argued that ‘Business managers should actually move into the role of the HR business partners.’ He shared some reasons supporting his argument and the principal being the lack of business acumen from HR’s part.
Great perspective no doubt, but the question remains are business managers eager to assume HR roles [as yet]? Because, last time I checked, we HR pros aren’t held in particularly high esteem. So for this transformation to happen, it will require a massive change in existing mindset.
But without disagreeing with Gautam, I want to view the ‘HR and business’ issue from another angel: rather than HR waiting for business managers to come in with their expertise, why not HR reaches out to business managers and collaborate with them?
There is no denial that in the changing environment HR cannot afford to run in the traditional way. HR needs to evolve. And one way to do this is to decentralize HR activities and collaborate and form partnerships with the rest of the business. This will ensure greater information flow between HR and the business and consequently help to understand each others’ perspectives.
HR must share some of the responsibilities with business managers. Why? First, as we discuss below, line managers assuming HR roles is necessary to make stronger HR impact on the overall business and secondly, this will also condition the business managers for taking more advanced HR business partner roles, if and when happens.
- Line managers are the people who are in direct contact with employees, day in day out. Their knowledge about employees and business are far superior to HR and naturally they are in a much better position to deliver HR deliverables.
- When dealing with people and people processes, there is no ‘one size fits all’ strategy. Business managers know the ground reality and can ensure tailored HR solution.
- Business world is becoming more volatile than ever and changes are rapid. This rapid transformations demand faster and flexible HR services; something very difficult to deliver by a centrally managed HR.
- Efficient implementation of HR strategies is not a one-off event; it requires continuous engagement, monitoring and adjustments. HR can plan and introduce new concepts, but without line managers’ active support and feedback, they won’t go a long way.
- One criticism that HR always face is it’s overly engaged with operational activities and not enough at the strategic end. Thus delegating some of the activities to business managers will assist HR to concentrate on strategic aspects and other value adding functions.
But it’s easier said than done. Selling the idea of sharing HR responsibilities with business managers won’t be easy since they are understandably burdened with other business related functions already. It will require continuous advocacy, job rearrangements and incentives from HR’s part.
To make long story short, HR needs to broaden it’s horizon, interact and share information with others, work in partnership with various business units and thus blur the boundary between HR and non-HR. Hard, but not impossible. Do you agree? What’s your take?
Photo credit: c.a.muller
High employee turnover?
Employees in most places may be hard-pressed to barely keep their jobs intact, but still there are some organizations out there that are suffering from high turnover. I came into contact with one such company couple of weeks ago and they were looking for answers to keep turnover rate down in their place.
So what could possibly an organization do to tackle the problem? More importantly, where to look for the source of the nuisance?
Before we begin our exploration, let’s remember that when employees leave an organization in large numbers, more often than not the reason is a combination of many factors. No one wants to leave a job. It’s not fun. But sometimes people feel so uncomfortable in the workplace, they can’t take it anymore.
Are you hiring the right people?
Make sure you are hiring the ‘best-fit talent’, not necessarily the ‘best talent’. If you fail to identify the right match considering your organization’s culture, values and expectations, you will never be successful in creating a sustainable workforce. When you hire new employees, try to explore what culture/background they are coming from. Is it completely different from what your organization offers? Is he/she capable enough to adjust with the change? What about the employee’s expectations about the organization and position?
More importantly, before you hire, always be honest and realistic about what you offer and what you expect. Don’t go overboard to lure someone for the position; today or tomorrow the employee will find it out and will feel cheated.
What is the overall work environment like?
Organization’s work rules and practices are critical determinants of turnover. If they are too strict, overwhelming or cause for workplace stress, employees will most likely withdraw themselves sooner than later.
In addition, if the overall work culture in the organization is not supportive enough and traditionally management performs poorly in appreciating and recognizing individual talents and efforts, employees might feel betrayed and look for better options.
Are your employees committed?
How motivated are your employees? Do they take pride in working for your organization? If your employees can relate to your organization and they feel valued, they will more likely be loyal and stay longer. Try to gauge the level of commitment and motivation in your workforce.
Career or ‘job’?
Do you offer your employees ‘jobs’ or careers? Can they advance vertically? If employees don’t see any scope for personal growth within your organization, they are likely to leave you, especially those who are at the early stage of their career. Adding value can take various forms. It could be career advancement through promotion, helping employees discover their hidden qualities by giving them the opportunity to work in diverse functions within the organization, or it could be through arrangement of formal learning and development programs.
Rewarding properly?
Recognizing employee performance and rewarding them appropriately is the last thing you can ignore. It’s always a good idea to pay your employees better than what the competitors are currently offering. But in case you can’t afford to pay more, at least try to maintain parity.
Is there a bad apple?
Sometimes few particular departments or particular persons contribute to the lion’s share of the turnover rate. Identify those actors and discuss the problem with them. Try to delve deep and pin point the reasons behind the issue.
Do you ‘hear’ your employees?
Do you have formal/informal communication channels installed in the workplace? Getting regular feedbacks from employees help to get the pulse of the workforce and thus tackle employee concerns/dissatisfactions at the right time and before it’s too late. Lack of communication creates doubt, mistrust and distance between management and employees.
Are your employees insecure about jobs?
Never let your employees feel insecure about their jobs. Insecurity is contagious. It can encourage employees to take preemptive measures and leave you prematurely in search of ‘more stable’ positions.
The above are some generic ideas to give you a head start in your quest to find the answer to high turnover. But there could be other organization specific reasons behind the problem. The key is to recognize the issue and sincerely find solutions.
Are you ready to dig?
Photo credit: kevinzhengli
Organization’s personality and social media
Although there are a lot of hoo-haas surrounding ’social media’ these days, the concept is nothing new. What is new is the form it’s taking and the tools being used. And whether you like it or not, you (as an individual or an organization) are already present in the social media world and someone somewhere is talking about you: good or bad. Now it’s up to you whether to put a blind eye to all the discussions, or make yourself visible and take charge of those conversations.
However, while it’s easy to advice, are all organizations ready for the journey? Just as each of us has different personalities, so is the case for the organizations we work in. Some organizations are very dynamic, transparent, open to changes, ‘hip’ and all that. While at the other end of the spectrum are those that are kinda ‘traditional’, reserved, bureaucratic and not very comfortable experimenting with new ideas and concepts. Now I am not saying there is anything wrong with that, my point is each organization has a unique ‘personality’, each has a distinct culture/characteristic/mood and when we talk about organizations and embracing the social media, we need to think about the compatibility factor between organization’s culture and social media engagement.
I was listening to SHRM blogger panel discussion the other day and one of the questions from the audience was why there are so few bloggers from public sector. In fact, the only blogger’s name that came up was Lisa Rosendahl from HR Thoughts. And frankly speaking, this is not surprising at all. In general, public sector organizations around the world are the kind of traditional, bureaucratic organizations that we outlined above. More often than not these institutions are slow and rigid in communication and decision making with vertical management structure and not very enthusiastic when it comes to sharing information and experience with others. And same goes to many private sector organizations as well. It’s like that shy and introvert person who is not comfortable mingling and interacting with people, let alone with a complete group of strangers.
Now the question is, if such an organization [public or private] decides to go out in the social media world without recognizing and taking care of it’s underlying cultural traits [which are quite the opposite and incompatible what social media demands], how successful and sustainable the journey will be? And if successful, for how long?
Photo credit: Gary Hayes
Are you sure you want to layoff?
Business confidence might be rising and planned layoffs may be falling, but ‘bad time’ is far from over and we can expect many more instances of layoffs in coming days, albeit in a smaller scale. But sometimes it makes you wonder, is this the only answer to recession? While there is no denial that at times you do not have any other option but to make employees redundant, unfortunately in many instances businesses consider this as a god send and the only available measure to tackle the less-than-favorable situation. Sometimes they do it without thinking about the long-term consequences and trade off with the short-term ‘gains’.
But ideally, one should try to exhaust all other alternatives before deciding to layoff.
Are you sure this is ABSOLUTELY your last resort?
Are you sure you have carried out proper business analysis and the business is not going to pick up sooner than later?
Are you sure it will be easy to hire when the table turns?
Are you sure you have taken into consideration the fact that when you fire employees, you are not only loosing the ‘people’, but also loosing the training and development cost, time, expertise, experience and knowledge associated with them?
Are you sure the whole redundancy issue won’t hurt your company image?
Are you sure you understand that if you can manage to avoid layoff, it will be a big boost for your company’s brand, market share and overall business performance when the good time comes?
Are your sure you don’t know about the Boeing and Airbus story of the 90s?
In case you don’t, let me tell you.
Boeing was long the overwhelmingly dominant producer in the world of commercial aircraft. However in 1993, Boeing announced a cut in production of more than 40 percent because of order cancellations with the labor force to be cut by a full 35 percent. In addition, a special early retirement program stripped out 9000 more workers who had special skills and the retirement program alone cost $600 million.
By early 1996, as the order cycle changed direction again as it had often in the past, production delays and missed deliveries at Boeing mounted as the lack of trained assembly workers meant parts assemblies needed to to reworked, with newly hired managers simply unfamiliar with building airplanes. By late 1997, overwhelmed by thousands of production foul-ups, production of the 747 and 737 aircraft was temporarily halted, while the company reported a $1.6 billion third quarter loss, with another $1 billion expected. And when analyzing the situation, among others, the company spoke of “productivity inefficiencies associated with adding thousands of new employees.”
On the other hand, Airbus did not take the route of Boeing’s. Instead showed steady expansion of production. And by early 2004, Airbus took the market share lead in commercial aircraft away from Boeing, won more gross orders than Boeing in four of the five earlier years, and established a much bigger order backlog, with a much higher R&D budget and a percentage return on sales similar to Boeing’s.
So what could have Boeing done to avoid the mess-up?
• It might have kept virtually all its staffs as business turned down in 1993.
• It might have accepted lower share prices for a year or two.
• Cut its dividend payment
• Reduced executive compensation.
• Tightened operations instead of blowing away tens of thousand of employees.
A $600 million retirement program expense would have been unnecessary, and massive losses from failed production efforts would have been avoided if Boeing would have opted for continued employment, absorbed the cost of temporarily unnecessary workers, kept its head down through the slump and retained its commanding share position as the market recovered.*
Morale of the story? Sometimes it’s wiser to bear the short-term pain for the long-term gain.
* The Boeing Airbus story taken from James C. Abegglen’s book titled ’21st-Century Japanese Management’.
Photo credit: Schoschie
HR needs to step up
In my last post I talked about some of the negative connotations that are usually associated with HR. The next step would be to find out ways on how HR can win credibility and position itself as a core business function.
However, before we delve further, it’s important to know where HR’s ‘real’ strength lies. HR cannot be mistaken as yet another support function like administration or IT. While HR certainly has some support oriented tasks built in, HR, in its true essence is a function that adds value to the organization by sourcing, nurturing and retaining talents and by developing effective people strategies and aligning them with organization’s core business objectives.
So HR’s strength is not just in maintaining the status quo, but one of developing and thus adding value. HR is not just about a combo of discrete functions of recruitment, compensation or training, it’s more than that. It’s about helping the business grow by tapping into its human capital; it’s about devising and implementing overarching strategies involving organization’s most important resource – the human resource.
Therefore, for HR to win the heart of others, it must continuously demonstrate links between the organization’s people management and business objectives. HR needs to prove that it has got the necessary oomph to succeed in the changing world and capable enough to weather the storms.
Be business focused
HR needs to talk business. Focusing and exhausting all the energy only on ‘soft’ aspects of management will not serve the purpose. If HR fails to communicate at the same wavelength as of the rest of the business, it’s in danger of loosing credibility. HR professionals need to have minimum business acumen for others to take them seriously. Business is all about numbers and HR should be comfortable with that. There needs to be a balance of focus between ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ aspects of the business.
Thinking long term
HR must see the bigger picture rather than losing its way into narrow focuses. HR professionals can’t let themselves be bogged down by petty administrative activities and fail to contribute at the strategic end of the spectrum. As I have mentioned earlier, it’s about adding value, not merely maintaining the status quo. And one way of doing this is to have long term objectives and strategies that complement the overall business policy.
Risk taker
‘No risk, no gain’, no matter how cliché it sounds, it’s undeniable. Rather than sitting within its own little comfort zone and playing safe, HR must venture out and be more adventurous. With businesses becoming ever more volatile and unpredictable, HR must be proactive and take preemptive measures when required.
Tech savvy
HR should be tech savvy and welcome any new technological development that has the potential to contribute and complement. When we say technology, it’s more than just implementing a new software or HRIS. For instance, some recent and relevant developments include rise of social media and mobile devices. HR should not be wary of them, instead promote concepts that integrate these technologies and channel them positively.
Business leader, not mere business partner
HR professionals need to strive to be business leaders. Why be content with only being business partners? HR has all the necessary elements in its arsenal to turn itself into the most influential and critical business function. What is required is to have that vision to reach the top, the eagerness and determination to succeed and be bold enough to make the right moves.
HR has long played the second fiddle which it can ill afford any longer. Looking forward, it has two options to choose from; bury the head in the sand and pretend it’s doing just fine. Or, shift the gear. and make an impact in the business. To me, the choice is rather simple.
Photo credit: CarbonNYC
HR eh!?
Ever got that blank stare from people when you tell them that you [actually chose to] work in HR? I know I did. Not once, but many times. Some people apparently had hard time reasoning it.
But I don’t blame them. The kind of reputation that HR carries, it’s not surprising at all. After all, to this date, most people that work in HR have not actually ‘chosen’ it, rather ‘fell’ into it. What a shame.
So why exactly is this image problem? What makes HR errm…..not a sexy profession?
The reason is a combination of many. Starting from a not-so-positive perception of HR as a mere ‘clerical’ department to HR’s downright failure to blow its own horn.
Historically, HR – the once so-called personnel department, has been viewed as a support function which is infamous for draining company money, instead of generating. This view is strongly prevalent till to this day and HR’s apparent inability to translate their business decisions into cash flows is still fueling this perception.
Moreover, by its very nature, HR is positioned into middle of controversies. HR’s notorious role of firing employees, dealing with sensitive matters of reward and recognition, performance management, promotion, grievance, breaking ‘bad’ news etc. are to name a few of the everyday decisions that effect employees directly, and in many cases negatively.
Sometimes within the organization an ‘us vs. them’ mindset grows where HR is perceived as management’s ‘partner in crime’. They are viewed with cynicism and consequently, fail to gain the much needed trust and support of the employees.
Many regard HR as a passive element in the organization which fails to take proactive role. HR is perceived as an unattractive function that works in the background and is rather bureaucratic in nature. Some are not even sure what HR really does. I had people asking me what we do as HR professionals and whether we do anything other than interviewing people.
So what’s the way out? How can HR gain the reputation and credibility that it deserves? Is there anyway for HR to position itself at the heart of organizational and business activities? It’s high time we ‘genuinely’ start thinking and doing something about that.
Photo credit: Natashavora
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