HR learning: 17 Oct, 2016

1.

How learning analytics can create better interventions

Learning Analytics uses data about employees and their learning activities to help organizations understand and improve their processes, and provide better support to learners. In this article we look at how learning analytics can help in creating better interventions. 

As an HR professional, do you feel perplexed about how to utilize the huge amount of data?

Do you feel the need to create more effective learning interventions for your employees?

Do you wish to see your learning and development programs yielding higher return?

Research suggests that any intervention which is backed by solid analyses can lead to better outcomes – for instance, data driven companies are more productive and profitable than their competitors1. So let’s see some of the ways to leverage learning analytics to create better interventions:

1.    Making more accurate predictions: 

2.    Improving on-going programs for the future:

3.    Paving way for personalized experience:

Every organization has specific needs and it is important to assess culture and readiness before deploying any learning analytics practices. It is also important that an organization prepare with the requisite policies, procedures, and skills needed to use predictive learning analytics tools to create the most relevant and enriching interventions for their audiences. 

2.

"I am the victim of the Queen Bee Syndrome"

With the organizations leadership becoming more androgynous, I think that as leaders, it is important to understand the fact that a leader grows when his/her people grow - together!

I have been the victim of the Queen Bee Syndrome. Throughout my career, I have had female bosses. (I mean I can literally count on my fingertips!). Maybe because I have been in the publishing industry all throughout and by the sheer fact that this industry is dominated by women (well…almost!)

Nonetheless, coming to the point, I have had the best times and have faced the worst times with female bosses (and all ended with the worst). 

From being understanding of my roles of being a daughter, then eventually a daughter-in-law, wife and later a mom, I have majorly had women bosses who have totally been oblivious to me even as a human being, let alone a woman with needs….many needs. From making me quit because I was going to be a mother (and rendered unfit to take on more responsibilities) to creating a hostile environment (gossip and what not), I have come to believe that having female bosses can be nerve-wrecking. 

In retrospect, after almost ten years in the industry, I have realized that the dynamics are different when you have female bosses. And the term for this dynamics is the “Queen Bee Syndrome”. Defined by G.L. Staines, T.E. Jayaratne, and C. Tavris in 1973, “it describes a woman in a position of authority who views or treats subordinates more critically if they are female.”

While researching on why female bosses can be ‘sciatica’, I stumbled on this: “Far from nurturing the growth of younger female talent, they push aside possible competitors by chipping away at their self-confidence or undermining their professional standing. It is a trend thick with irony: The very women who have complained for decades about unequal treatment now perpetuate many of the same problems by turning on their own. A 2011 survey of 1,000 working women by the American Management Association found that 95% of them believed they were undermined by another woman at some point in their careers.”¹

I am not implying this kind of a feeling an attack to my feminist sisters, but Gallup data² (although specific to America) does show that more people preferred a male boss. I can certainly understand why the United States don’t want to have a woman President. However on a serious note, I wonder if men have to say something similar about having women bosses. 

3.

9 success indicators of a learning organization

In an increasingly digital world, success lies in evidence-based decision making. Here are some indicators that simplify the best practices of leading learning organizations.

For a number of years, organizations used talent and learning frameworks such as the Skillsoftt Learning Growth Model to understand and evaluate their learning strategies. In the age of digital transformation, these measures have increased in scope and the tools to measure success have become manifold. Organizations today are increasingly turning to the idea of the self-developing organization, which puts the individual’s ability and initiative at the center of their learning agendas. 

In this article, we take a look at some of the success indicators from some of the best organizations in the world. In each of these indicators are principles that align with organizational goals, which focus not only on the learning function but also relevant business outcomes.

1.    Focus on culture:

2.    Integrated HR strategy

3.    Catalyze employee ownership

4.    Study consumer experiences

5.    Build smart technology systems

6.    Focus on elective participation rate: 

7.    Understand governance frameworks

8.    Provide adequate funding: 

Measure the impact of learning and talent programs

HR News: 17 Oct, 2016

1.

HP may cut up to 4,000 jobs by 2019

The company is facing a subdued market with its shares coming down 1.3 per cent in extended trading.

HP Inc., the American multinational IT major, recently shared that it expects to cut about 3,000 to 4,000 jobs over the next three years, as the maker of printers and personal computers continues to struggle with a subdued market, sending its shares down 1.3 percent in extended trading.

HP, the hardware business holder of former Hewlett-Packard Co, has earlier said in February that it would accelerate its restructuring programme and slash around 3,000 jobs by the end of this fiscal.

HP chief executive, Dion Weisler said the market continued to be volatile, facing pressures and uncertainties.

2.

Deutsche Bank imposes hiring freeze

The hold on recruitments is in response to the prospect of a multi-billion-dollar legal penalty.

Deutsche Bank, the German multinational banking and financial services company has reportedly declared a freeze on hiring new staff, amid investor fears that a pending US fine could cripple the bank.

The German lender apparently sent its managers a memorandum about the freeze last week, which probably would not apply to the compliance department responsible for ensuring that the staff abide by the law.

The hold on hiring is the latest in a series of responses by the management to the mounting crisis of confidence rising from the prospect of a multi-billion-dollar legal penalty.

3.

Workplace: Facebook’s new business version

Redefining interaction and engagement of co-workers at work, Workplace will now be available to all interested organisations.

Facebook, the social networking platform certainly got people addicted to it, so much so, that there was a time organisations prevented employees from using it at work. Infosys, for instance, had banned the use of Facebook at work, for a long time. However, little did the corporate world know that Facebook will come out with an alluring new face to pique the interest of organisations across sectors and geographies.

While the world was hooked to Facebook for social networking, Facebook itself had an internal version of the app that the employees used to stay connected at work. Taking this further, the company started testing a version for the workplace, with a few other organisations over a year ago. Now, more than 1,000 organisations around the world use Workplace (formerly known as Facebook at Work). People have created nearly 100,000 groups and the top five countries using Workplace are India, Norway, UK, France and the US.

With an overwhelming response from these organisations, Facebook recently announced that Workplace will now be available to any company or organisation that wants to use it. The workplace is about a lot more than just communicating between desks within the walls of an office. Some people spend their entire workday on the go, on their mobile phones, while others spend all day out in the field, or on the road.

HR Movements: 17 Oct, 2016

1.

Myntra gets Manpreet Ratia as chief people officer from Amazon

Ratia will now drive key HR functions at Myntra with a focus on talent acquisition and retention for various levels and verticals. 

Myntra, a leading online fashion & lifestyle retailer, recently appointed Manpreet Ratia as its chief people officer and head of new initiatives. In his new role, Ratia will drive key HR functions, focussing on talent acquisition and retention for various levels and verticals. He will also drive new business initiatives, to help strengthen and grow the company’s leadership position in the online fashion industry.

An alumnus of XLRI Jamshedpur, Ratia comes with over 20 years of leadership experience in domains such as financial services and e-commerce in India not just India alone, but also Asia and the United States. His track record boasts of building businesses, turnarounds and creating value and unique experiences for customers. He is also known for his collaborative leadership style and a penchant for new technologies in order to create differentiation.

2.

Mercer appoints Preeti Chandrashekhar as the business leader for benefits

With over 20 years of experience, she has earlier worked for Infosys and Willis Towers Watson.

Mercer, the global consulting leader recently announced the appointment of Preeti Chandrashekhar as the India business leader for benefits. Chandrashekhar joins Mercer from Willis Towers Watson where she was working as consulting leader for employee benefits for south India and Sri Lanka.

She has over two decades of industry experience along with expertise in global benefits harmonisation and management, trust governance and compliance, mergers and acquisitions, and actuarial services. Starting off with LIC India, Chandrashekhar worked with Infosys before joining Willis Towers Watson.

Anish Sarkar, country leader, Mercer India says, “Benefits is an important domain for Mercer across retirement & health lines of business. We now hope to expand our footprint in the market by bringing more of Mercer’s innovative solutions to our clients.”

3.

BEML elevates HR director Hota as CMD

Hota is an economics graduate from St. Stephens, New Delhi, who also holds an MBA in human resources from XLRI, Jamshedpur.

DK Hota, director, HR, BEML, has been appointed as the chairman & managing director of the Company.

He takes over from P Dwarakanath, who retired on June 30.

Hota joined BEML in July 2013, prior to which he worked with Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) for 30 years. His last designation at HPCL was head-natural gas division.

An economics graduate from St. Stephens, New Delhi who also holds an MBA in HR from XLRI, Jamshedpur, Hota says, “I believe that the ‘Make in India’ campaign of the Government of India is a golden opportunity for BEML to grow. With the given potential of the skills and experience, I am sure that the Company would rise to greater heights.”

Prof. Rangana Maitra on, “An excerpt of the research at Wharton on humour and status”

According to Wharton research, a sense of humor, when deftly and appropriately used, can enhance workplace status and perception of one’s competence. That’s one of the findings of the research paper, “Risky Business: When Humor Increases and Decreases Status,” by Maurice Schweitzer, Wharton professor of operations, information and decisions; doctoral candidate Brad Bitterly, and Alison Wood Brooks, a Harvard University assistant professor.

The research was on the relationship between humor and status. Humor pervades our daily interactions, yet it’s been largely ignored by the prior organizational research. They discovered that the successful use of humor signals confidence and competence, which in turn increases the joke teller’s status. But what can backfire is the use of inappropriate jokes or becoming the ‘class clown.’ “Although signaling confidence typically increases status, telling inappropriate jokes signals low competence and the combined effect of high confidence and low competence harms status,” the paper said.

When we look around, we see some examples of humor going really well and it causes us to perceive the joke teller as more confident, competent and higher in status. For example, the night before Dick Costolo joined Twitter as the chief operating officer, he sent out a tweet that said, “First full day as Twitter COO tomorrow. Step one, undermine CEO, consolidate power.” A year after he sent out that tweet, he ended up becoming CEO of Twitter. So we can see examples of where someone uses humor and they rise to the top of the hierarchy, but we also see cases where people attempt to use, say a really inappropriate joke, and just plummet to the bottom. And the focus of our work is trying to understand what it is about humor that can cause someone to either rise or fall in status.

Humor is risky. Humor can signal competence and confidence and increase our status. But sometimes humor can fail because it’s inappropriate, because it’s just not very funny or because we overdo it. In those cases, we signal low competence and that harms our status. And in some cases we’ve seen people get fired because of it.

What we find is that whether or not the humor goes well, the use of humor, the attempted use, always signals confidence. I’m a confident person, I’m telling a joke. But the competence, how competent I am, really matters. And that’s what swings the use of humor from being effective or ineffective.

Since it is a really important skill set in our daily lives and a really important managerial skill, I think it could help for people to try to take classes. They could do improve classes that could get them more familiar, more comfortable with delivering a joke. I think part of the difficulty to begin with is just trying to get that confidence — that way, you feel comfortable delivering it, even an appropriate joke.

It’s also something we can look for in selection. So when you screen people, we might look for somebody that is at least comfortable with humor. Again, we don’t want the class clown, but for somebody who’s facile with it, it can really be a strategic advantage.

One of the conclusions that the researchers found particularly surprising was that they found that someone who effectively used humor, they were not only perceived to be more confident, competent and higher in status, they were even more likely to be elected as a group leader for a subsequent task. So here we see humor not only influencing perceptions of one another, but even influencing behavior.

The area where we set ourselves apart is that we demonstrate that although confidence really does help us in our lives — it’s really good to be confident — saying an inappropriate joke is such a strong signal of lower intelligence and lower skill, it overpowers any of the benefits of confidence and causes a person to lose status.

HR learning: 10 Oct, 2016

1.

4 lenses to learning methodologies

Adopting innovative learning methodologies can help ensure that employees are invested in learning and minimize the gaps between learning and application. Here are 4 lenses that organizations can look through to identify learning methodologies that work best for them. 

The business of managing people has come a long way – From Welfare Officers in 1890s, Labor Managers in 1910s, Personnel Managers in 1940s and HR Management in the 1980s. Since the late 1990s, the term “Strategic HR” has been used to describe the role that HR should play in accelerating and enabling business goals. At Converge 2016, Animesh Kumar, Head – HR, Brand and Foundation at IDFC Bank highlighted the evolution of HR practices in the recent years and spoke about the approach of the bank towards talent transformation.

Phenomenon based learning

One of the best ways to ensure that employees are deeply invested in learning is to ensure that it solves their problems. Phenomenon based learning, built on exactly this foundation, focuses on motivating employees to bring forth a real life scenario – any current situation or event in their world and then analyzing it through an interdisciplinary approach. Taking this concept from the education system in Finland, coaches/mentors could be aligned to the team of employees undergoing this learning intervention, who can provide an expert opinion – but it’s the employees’ ideas, questions and theories that are the starting point to the discussion.

Key Benefits – Employees are involved since it solves their problems, interdisciplinary approach

Action learning

Lights, camera, action! Every employee is their own director, and getting them to learn what you want them to, is only possible if it supports the “action.” Providing that seamless experience of learning and the application of it to the work, action learning presents the “Bring your work to training” concept. Ray Carvey, Executive Vice President of Corporate Learning and International for Harvard Business Publishing shares that they design a program for senior leaders and high potentials which they call “action learning” as a project. Employees dedicate 3-4 hours a week to take work and apply what they learn as a part of the design. And the rest of the week is for them to think what they learned and practice it. Bringing in this thought-based application of learning not only increases employee engagement but also minimizes the gaps between learning and its application.

Key Benefits - Minimized gaps between learning and application, employee engagement

Pervasive learning

Learning can happen anywhere, anytime. Learning expert Dan Pontefract says, “Pervasive learning is learning at the speed of need through formal, informal and social learning modalities.” As the boundaries between work and home blur rapidly, the concept of pervasive learning is gaining popularity. Organizations using this technique enrich an employees' environment with as many opportunities to learn as possible. And the key to providing that on-the-fingertips reach beyond physical boundaries is technology. Leveraging technology to tweak the way employees can access learning content and make learning engaging is important to cover the 360 degree world of employees. Such initiatives, beyond engagement, also enhance employee retention and learning experience.

Key Benefits  – Enriched employee environment, on-the-go learning, enhanced employee experience

Adaptive path learning

Every moment we are creating a huge (and this is really a small word) amount of data. It is estimated that we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day – now that says volumes! As the world is figuring out ways to use this data to its full potential, adaptive path learning provides opportunities for employees to carve out personalized learning paths using data-based approach to determine what works and what does not. Based on the results of how the content is being consumed, user experiences with similar learning objectives and user preferences, the learning material will guide through a specific path that yields the most productive learning outcomes – and this gets smarter with every interaction. Data helps in making those adjustments and changes.

Key Benefits – Personalized learning, data-driven enhanced learning outcomes

While these lenses to learning methodologies provide opportunities for re-designing strategies for learning interventions, one needs to contextualize them to the organization and see what works best. A common pitfall that organizations tend to fall into is implementing methodologies in scenarios which cannot be benefited by them because they are not clear about the expected outcomes. For example, conducting a broad-based training such as compliance training through adaptive path learning may not be the best suited option--but pervasive learning may be. So, figure out what works for you and happy re-designing!

2.

Charting what's next for learning & talent strategy

Skillsoft's five-stage bench marking framework can help you assess your current stage of maturity and develop a plan to advance to the next level.

Research shows that organizations with strong learning and talent management processes drive business results—more revenue, greater employee engagement, reduced staff turnover, higher customer retention… the list goes on. This makes maturing your learning and talent strategy a business imperative.

But before you can determine how best to improve, you need to understand your organization’s current state. Skillsoft’s five-stage bench marking framework can help you assess your current stage of maturity and develop a plan to advance to the next level.

In this webinar organized by People Matters in association with Kieran King, Vice President, Global Customer Insight, Skillsoft, the three following points were discussed:

1. The maturity indicators we’ve designed based on observations of thousands of organizations across all sizes, geographies, and industries
2. How to diagnose your organization’s present level of maturity
3. What are the steps to improve learning and talent effectiveness and ultimately, business results

3.

L&D League Annual Conference: Winners' story

Here's a sneak peak of what our winners of 2015 L&D Annual Conference shared and what's their learning agenda.

To learn is to grow. And professionally, that's the mantra employees believe when they want to move ahead in their career and help organizations win businesses. Here's a sneak peak of what our winners of 2015 L&D Annual Conference shared and what's their learning agenda - what made them stand out to outgrow failures and accelerate growth.

The L&D League Annual Conference 2016 is here. Do come and attend the interesting sessions on learning and development at the L&D League Annual Conference 2016 on 20th October, 2016 at The Leela, Gurgaon.