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
