Human Resources

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 26 mar 2014

Although large and established organizations have best talent and process execution abilities but they are less inclined to incorporate startup culture as they try to maintain status quo, stability, size and reduced appetite for risk taking. Justin Ferrell of Stanford d.School suggests the following for individuals that have expertise, restlessness and irrationality to catalyze startup culture in established organizations - Encourage the uncomfortable, in yourself and in others; Bypass authority early; Get horizontal; Talk to each other (a lot); Lead from the bottom. He also cites the central thesis of the paper 'How do committees invent?' by computer programmer Melvin Conway, which is often termed as Conway's Law - "organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations." - to enforce the value of communication in organizational change and how, what and with whom this communication happens. Read on...

The Wall Street Journal: Justin Ferrell - Bringing Startup Culture to an Established Company
Author: Justin Ferrell

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 19 mar 2014

Professor Edgar Schein of MIT defines culture in his book 'Organizational Culture and Leadership', as pattern of basic assumptions and beliefs, the learned behaviors, shared values and norms that define the work in an organization. Culture plays an important role in building and developing relationship of organization with its stakeholders. In large organizations culture generally gets evolved and established over a period of time through multiple iterations. But in case of smaller entrepreneurial companies with fast paced environment, culture can have critical impact on the success or failure of the venture during its formative stages. Article explains with examples the importance of culture in new companies and how it can be consciously and deliberately created by entrepreneurial teams. According to the author, culture can be intentionally designed but it has to be 'lived', thus helping the company to overcome ups and downs of the start-up environment. Moreover it is also a strategic resource similar to technology, brand or people that can be central to the success of the company. Read on...

Forbes: Building Culture In A Tech Start-Up
Author: Name

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 05 mar 2014

Influence is an important aspect of human personality that provides the ability to affect and attract others. Psychologist Herbert Kelman of Harvard University wrote about 'social influence' and considered 'compliance' (agreement with others in public, disagreement in private), indentification (influence due to likeness and respect for a specific personality) and internalization (agreement in both public and private) as three processes of attitude change. In the article John Hagel III explores the changing nature of influence in the dynamic world of today and recommends ways to achieve more influence. According to him the conventional approach to build influence included - by providing answers; by demonstrating strength; by being a hub of a network of like minded people that further persuaded others through the answers that were provided. But in the transient world of today the answers lose value rapidly as the new and better ways and methods displace and make the older ones obsolete. Therefore he suggests the new way of building and retaining influence by asking questions. Questions have the ability to invite participation and provide the opportunity to co-create and co-develop answers and solutions by sharing ideas and insights. But the challenge is to frame the right and effective questions to get valuable insights. He suggests - ask broad questions; questions where stakes are high; questions with depth that require consistent effort over extended period of time; questions that provide step by step answers that encourages continued participation. Asking questions demonstrates individual's vulnerability that helps in building trust-based relationships in the initial stages. Moreover it enhances the ability to access tacit knowledge of the participants. The new approach also requires mobilization of a new kind of network, more mesh-like, connecting every participant with each other, thus providing unexpected and evolving ways to co-explore. This assists in building creation spaces with smaller teams connected with each other and getting together when required. To demonstrate the influence in action, John Hagel provides the example of Santa Fe Institute and its formation by a group of scientists led by George Cowan, and participants - David Pines, Stirling Colgate, Murray Gell-Mann, Nick Metropolis, Herb Anderson, and Peter A. Carruthers. They all represented different fields but all came together to seek answers to the questions about potential common themes regarding complex adaptive systems that cut across traditional disciplinary boundaries. Read on...

Edge Perspectives: The Big Shift in Influence
Author: Name

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 31 jan 2014

Customers are becoming more aware and knowledgeable about the products and services that are provided by companies and expect customer service to attend them effectively, efficiently and with an understanding approach. In a highly competitive business environment companies are using all possible resources to acquire and retain customers, and are trying to restrict them to switch to other comparable brands. Customer service is at the forefront of this customer acquisition and retention process. But all companies aren't able to provide proactive customer service and are still stuck in the older methods of reactive customer service. Article provides detailed example of a customer service delivery process by two companies, one of them is a CDN (Content Delivery Network) and the other a managed hosting service provider, serving the same client. The hosting provider has proactive approach (frequent and continued communication of the problem's status and step by step explanation of the solution process) while CDN had a reactive approach (only responding to client messages without providing assurance of solving the problem or trying to find a way to tackle it). Author also provides some basic steps that fulfil the requirement of a proactive customer service approach - Have processes that track potential problems before customers know them; Automate customer contact when a problem alert happens and manually evaluate severity of problem; Communicate humanly and effectively with customers when problem is identified; Don't keep users in the dark and share with them the solution process; Engage all possible communication channels and utilize the ones that customer prefers and is comfortable with. Read on...

ClickZ: Proactive vs. Reactive Customer Service
Author: Jack Aaronson

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 31 jan 2014

Human resources are critical component of any organization. They provide their skills and services in exchange for wages and other benefits. Moreover organizations try to care for their employees and provide them better environment for enhanced productivity and efficiency and generally would like them to be happy and satisfied. But when it comes to volunteers, they are not paid employees and give their important time to charities and nonprofit organizations due to their personal commitment to a particular cause. They also act as unofficial community ambassadors for the charity's work and without their valuable contribution it would become difficult for nonprofits to fulfil their commitments and objectives considering their limited finances and budgets. Therefore it becomes important for these organizations to have a caring and supportive work environment and provide a positive volunteering experience. According to research by YouGov only 42% of those who volunteered in past 12 months in UK had a happy experience. Russel Findlay, CEO of London Youth Games Foundation, explains how his charity is able to attract more volunteers than others in UK and provides suggestions to charities to make volunteering happier and more fulfilling - Make it fun; Meaningful roles; Appreciation. Read on...

the guardian: What can charities do to improve the volunteering experience?
Author: Russell Findlay

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 25 jan 2014

Technological advancements and innovations bring game changing shifts in the dynamics of industries. Data science is transforming the online advertising industry with newer concepts and technologies like real-time bidding, advertising exchanges, social media, retargeting techniques, lookalike targeting, online data dashboards, analytics softwares like Hadoop etc. Technology have also led to the democratization of online advertising, and even businesses with smaller advertising budgets are been able to utilize it. Use of big data and analytics is providing advertisers with information, insights and tools to focus on specific consumers and market segments for better value and return on their advertising campaigns. But to interpret and utilize the data in right context and for maximum impact, newer set of skills are required by advertising human resources. Data scientists are expected to have knowledge of mathematics and statistics alongwith expertise in using spreadsheets and other analytics tools. Read on...

the guardian: What's the role of data scientists on online advertising?
Author: Tony Evans

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 23 jan 2014

Diversity in entrepreneurial and product development teams is capable of bringing not only valuable inputs and perspectives but can also make firms enhance and expand to markets they haven't actually planned to target. In case of most mobile apps that are currently been developed, the founders are young and educated and most of them are trying to serve the market that they themselves belong. But there is lack of apps development for the other segments like elderly, rural population, less effluent etc. Although there are some efforts in healthcare focused mobile apps development for senior population. According to an expert there is also a visible divide between tech-sector startups - big data and biotech firm's leadership tend to skew older, while consumer focused tech firm leadership skews younger. When products from large corporations are considered it is observed that they seem to be more prepared in handling diverse set of market segments in their product delivery. Skype and FaceTime, by Microsoft and Apple respectively, are the two apps that have been well adopted by seniors. Moreover such corporations are also the ones that have implemented workforce diversity and inclusion programs. While startups are just beginning to consider inclusiveness in their workforce. Read on...

Fast Company: STARTUP CULTURE'S LACK OF DIVERSITY STIFLES INNOVATION
Author: Neal Ungerleider

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 18 jan 2014

'Holacracy' is a concept and structural system of oranizational governance that involves non-hierarchical entities that self-govern and come together to work on a common goal. It's a type of flat management system but with a constitution and governance process for discussions and running meetings and that finally results in power and responsibility allocation through specific roles. In the upcoming book 'A Shift Of Power' the concept's creator, Brian Robertson, explains what it's like to operate within 'holacracy' - "It comes as a revelation and a challenge for everyone involved. The workers realize that they are no longer just employees following orders. They have real power and authority - and with that comes responsibility. They no longer have a parent-like manager to solve their problems." Article provides the evolution of 'holacracy' by exploring the main events from Brian Robertson's life - Self learning to code as a child; Teaching programming at age 13; Involvement with agile software development; Experimentation with sociocracy; Influence of philosopher Ken Wilber's concept of 'holarchies' (overarching systems that are made up of other self-organizing systems or entities called 'holons'); Partnership with serial entrepreneur Tom Thomison to crystallize ideas into a firm HolacracyOne. Read on...

QUARTZ: The story of the man who's flattening the world of corporate hierarchies
Author: Aimee Groth

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 10 jan 2014

'Datafication' of businesses is creating new models that harness the power of big data by storing, analyzing and monetizing it. There is a need for 'datafying' human resources as it happened with marketing that became a data-centric function some 25 years ago. Considering that businesses spend 50-60% of their total revenues on payroll it is even more important for them to optimize employee spending by analyzing data related to HR. Article provides detailed examples of companies that have taken the initiative to 'datafy' their HR function and are getting positive results by doing so. It is helping businesses to retain right set of employees, to enhance hiring and training programs to a targeted employee segment and to hire and predict high performers in a business function. The 'datafication' process have already started and it has potential to change and transform many aspects of HR that are currently in practice - Data management; Analytics tools; Data providers; Analytics education; New decision-making processes. Read on...

Forbes: The Datafication of Human Resources
Author: Josh Bersin

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 07 jan 2014

Human capital is one of the most critical and valuable component of organizations and the need for better qualified, skilled and talented personnels is imperative to successfully compete in the globalized environment. The latest 'Conference Board Challenge Survey' of 729 global CEOs rated human capital 10% higher than operational excellence as a major challenge for businesses. According to Erna Oldenboom of University of Capetown in South Africa, the challenges and confusion regarding HR can be overcome by aligning and integrating it into the overall business strategy and by involving it from the very beginning in the vision, mission and procedures of the organization. The 2013 Global Assessment Trends Report (GATR) based on a survey of 592 HR professionals identifies the following top priorities for HR globally - Engagement & retention (55%); Leadership development (52%); Performance management (49%); Workforce planning & talent analytics (43%); Training (42%); Succession planning (38%); External hiring (38%). Read on...

Ventures Africa: Strategic HR Answers To Human Capital Battles
Author: NA

Latest             ⊲ Newer Posts             Human Resources             Older Posts ⊳             Last