Human Resources

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 06 oct 2013

Prof. Enrique M. Soriano of the Ateneo Graduate School of Business in Philippines, explores the must-have entrepreneurial traits in individuals running their family businesses. He suggests - Know your business partners and suppliers and call them by their first names; Build strong relationships with family members by letting them know that you care; Make friends with similar business interests and goals; Consider your competitors as human beings and interact accordingly even if they don't further your business; Be persistent and consider failures as learning experiences; Manage creatively and support teamwork by understanding diverse nature of employees, family members, suppliers and customers; Imbibe meritocracy among family members while discussing the topic of family business continuity and succession planning; Ensure good planning and monitoring and consider family business as an intellectual property asset; Value your family business brand; Accept and support disagreements to maintain democratic style of functioning. Read on...

Sun Star: Most valued entrepreneurial traits in the family business
Author: Enrique M. Soriano

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 22 sep 2013

Change is an important element in people's lives and the environment they are part of. To handle change efficiently and successfully is a challenging task and requires clear understanding of various aspects of both people and the environment. According to research mentioned in a book 'Switch', human brain has two systems - one rational and other emotional. When these two are in alignment change is smooth and easy, if they are not then change is difficult. Thus to reach the alignment 'shape a path' by changing aspects of the environment. In another research by psychologist Lee Ross of Stanford University, people are not root of the problem but situations are. This he termed as 'fundamental attribution error'. The article explores change by citing real life examples and how it is possible to make change easier by first bringing incremental changes to the environment and surroundings. Read on...

The Star Online: Tweak the environment
Author: Roshan Thiran

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 19 sep 2013

Dr. Francis Collins, who sequenced the human genome and is currently the director of National Institue of Health in US, suggests seven leadership tips to federal managers who have the responsibility to lead governmental organizations and pursue their goals successfully for the betterment of society - (1) Right team (2) Give opportunity to people to grow (3) Encourage risk taking (4) Connect and align people to the mission (5) Pursue a calling and not just a job (6) Be realistic and understand the dynamics of government service (7) Never forget you have the opportunity to change the world. Read on...

Nextgov: How to lead a team to greatness, from the man who sequenced the Human Genome
Author: Mark Micheli

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 14 aug 2013

Both retailers and consumers are finding value out of the 'Fast Fashion' trends even though the manufacturing units churning out these items have critical issues related to safety conditions and employee protection. Fast fashion is a concept of selling inexpensive copies of the designer garments within the weeks of the original's debut in the market. It's basically making the latest fashion available to the mass consumers. Retailers are trying to improve the conditions of manufacturing facilities, often situated in developing countries, by signing contracts with them to ensure worker safety and other related issues. Even though consumers are now aware of the plight of the employees in these units because of the news media but this is not translating into their buying behavior for the trendy fashion. Consumers are still finding it advantageous in many ways. While labor activists expect more concern and proactive actions from consumers for bringing out change in current practices of the global garment industry. Read on...

The Washington Post: Cheap, trendy 'fast fashion' in demand, despite factory dangers
Author: Cara Kelly

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 11 aug 2013

The 10th Commonwealth Women Affairs Ministers Meeting (CWAMM) was recently held in Bangladesh. The theme of the meeting was 'Women's Leadership for Enterprise'. Gender equality and barriers to women entrepreneurship were among the various issues that were discussed in the meeting. According to the Secretary-General of CWAMM, Kamalesh Sharma, the new Commonwealth Charter considers gender equality and women's entrepreneurship as basic human rights and fundamental to development. Access to credit and markets to women entrepreneurs has economic benefits and women leadership is an important element of a sustainable economy. The article also explores the various aspects of women entrepreneurship and empowerment in Bangladesh. Read on...

The Financial Express: Women entrepreneurs deserve better
Author: Rahman Jahangir

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 03 aug 2013

According to a study conducted by Global Entrepreneurship Monitor in 2012, the entrepreneurial activity among males and females was almost equal in sub-Saharan Africa while it was higher for females in Ecuador, Ghana, Nigeria, Panama and Thailand. Access to capital particularly through 'microfinance' is considered to be the main reason for this growth of female entrepreneurs. This phenomenon of the 'third billion' - a billion women from mostly emerging markets joining the workforce in the next decade - have a significant potential to impact the global economy in near future. Experts identify four main challenges for women - access to education and training; access to legal protection; access to capital and access to market. Read on...

Terra News: Women Entrepreneurs Becoming Force in the Developing World
Author: Sarah J. Robbins

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 31 jul 2013

While speaking at the UNGA (UN General Assembly) Thematic Debate on Entrepreneurship for Development, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon emphasized the importance of entrepreneurship and urged governments to build entrepreneurial ecosystem and encourage, educate and empower young entrepreneurs. He mentions that there will be 73 million unemployed in the global economy this year and an estimated 425 million youths will join the workforce between 2016 and 2030, thus creating a challenging situation of providing jobs to about half a billion people. According to him entrepreneurship can help to overcome this crisis as it will transform these young women and men to become innovators, employers and job creators. Other officials also suggested participation of private sector and civil society in addition to governments to collaboratively overcome this global human resource challenge. Read on...

Global Times: Governments urged to support young entrepreneurs to help tackle global job crisis
Author: NA

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 31 jul 2013

According to a survey, 35% of the employers worldwide find it challenging to attract and retain talent and are concerned that this staff shortage will have a substantial impact on their businesses. Research suggests that to solve this problem companies should be more 'talent-focused' rather then only 'resource-focused' in their strategic planning efforts. Talent-focused companies use workforce analytics like behavioral assessment tools to match jobs with employee skills and talent and also optimize individual development and team dynamics. Behavioral assessments provide data related to individual's needs, aspirations, motivational drives etc, thus giving organizations predictive knowledge and understanding of the individual's behavioral characteristics for better decision making to assign job roles. According to recent research 92% of high performing companies use some sort of assessment data to enhance workplace productivity and performance. Read on...

PR Newswire: Tackling the Global Talent Shortage with Behavioral Assessment Data
Author: NA

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 27 jul 2013

A recent Thomson-Reuters study, with 1000 participating professionals from around the world, found similar workplace behavior, attitude and habits of workers irrespective of their gender. Moreover the study also focused on comparison between the developed nations (US and UK) and emerging markets (India and Brazil) on similar parameters. According to the study 52% of professionals in emerging nations predict gender gap closing in the next 25 years with more female executives at powerful positions. While only 36% in the developed markets expect this. Another point put forward by the study was related to worker optimism which seems higher in case of emerging nations (41% & 22% for females and 44% & 33% for males). Read on...

Slate: Reuters Study Claims the Gender Gap Has Been "Muted" Around the World. Nope.
Author: Amanda Hess

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 24 jul 2013

The latest architectural trend in office design is development of open and partitionless workspaces that foster creativity, collaboration and social interaction among employees. But a recent survey conducted by an architectural and design firm found that too much attention to open office design is actually hurting productivity. The survey report mentions that results show that lack of effective focus space adversely hurts efficiency of other work modes namely collaboration, learning and socializing. The firm suggests that the office design should intelligently blend collaborative open workspaces with focus areas to create what they term as 'optimal workplace design'. Read on...

Smart Planet: Is collaborative office design hurting workplace productivity?
Author: Tyler Falk

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