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Does your work culture promote a respectful dialogue in situations of strife or is it common for you to see colleagues letting their tempers have the better of them in disagreements?

How do you handle your interaction with a young colleague who’s joined your small team straight from his management school so is accustomed to presenting his argument by raising his voice as in a peer discussion in college or by switching himself off as in accountability questioning at home?

And, how do you make a mature team member see reason for she considers any contrary viewpoint as an unacceptable defeat and lets her displeasure known rather loudly?

I won’t be surprised if your answer is that you end up matching their screams with yours in order to be heard. And, I’d say you do this because you’re merely following your work culture.

Raising your voice to drown others would be an instinctive behavioural choice made during sibling, parental or marital disagreements at home so it’d make inroads into workplace interaction if the place doesn’t have its own recognised culture.  Resultantly, workplace culture would be defined by individual behavioural traits and not a set of thought out ethos applying to all. This is particularly true of small teams of young or mature professionals coming together to make business happen, but isn’t restricted to them. We’ve all come across customer care officers in banks or airports or government offices who are happily engaged in a personal chatter at the cost of our time and we know that’s because customer service isn’t emphasized enough as part of their work culture.

So, how should we define our work culture?

I quite agree with the 7 point-guideline HR Guru Susan M. Heathfield has shared in her article, and I’ve the following additional thoughts from my own experience from different workplaces:

1. Culture is reflected by the workplace décor – that’s right. Artwork on display, reception desk, guest waiting area, boxed workstations offering privacy vs open seating, flexibility accorded for personalizing workspace etc. convey a certain message to visitors and employees themselves about the way the organisation wants to be known.
2. Culture is communicated through employee dress code – the label of smart casuals used in policy manuals would be interpreted differently by individuals from diverse cultures so recommended ensembles are best spelt out in specific terms. I’d quite liked the idea of a corporate’s policy manual specifying the sort of footwear that would be unacceptable at work. Being specific is good.
3. Culture is understood by one and all through an organisation’s elaborated vision, mission and values – these statements aren’t just for websites on stationery; they communicate a certain message on what the organisation and leadership stand for. They also guide the workforce so should be formulated with care.
4. Culture is learnt through role models – making all individuals appreciative of work culture is necessary as they propagate the message further.
5. Culture is moulded through positive and negative reinforcement – by showing tolerance for an employee’s casual attire or for a supervisor’s judgemental remarks in an open meeting or a shouting match in any forum would damage any efforts made to establish a formal work culture promoting respect for individual viewpoint.
6. Culture has to tie in with business objectives – this advice would have a bearing on wide-ranging aspects such as the verbal or written language used by employees, document presentation and sharing with internal or external customers, internal record management, work models offered,  performance measurement criteria, employee attire as also how colleagues address or interact with each other. Configuration of these elements must be considered in the interest of overall productivity and business directions.
7. Culture definition must be inclusive – in the end, we believe in human dignity, and the work culture has to promote respect for every individual irrespective of race or title while keeping a workplace apolitical.

Do share your own take on planning workplace culture. Has it varied for you remarkably from one place to another? Or, shaped your own approach towards work or relationships?

A few weeks ago I got a request from a visitor to the blog for recent experiences with Goa and for an update on my furniture survey in particular. I obliged him with answers to his specific questions by email and am now sharing some of those details for other newbies to Goa.

Furniture shopping

Since my detailed post on the subject last year, I’ve used Fab India some more and separately got a cupboard and divan made by a carpenter’s crew. If anyone is looking for a carpenter in North Goa who refuses to budge from his quotes but delivers on time, just post a request for details.

Fab India’s small to mid-sized table options are delightful and worth grabbing.  But their big items (cupboard, beds) tend to be prohibitively priced and quite typical of their signature design style. For large items, I’d recommend exploring CMM for its hardwood furniture or hiring a carpenter. Both would cost about the same.

On our recent visit, we discovered a problem with earlier-bought pieces from Fab India. They were all mold-ridden due to Goa’s moisture laden air. Carpenters on hand helpfully informed us that some rubbing and a coat of polish would cure the pieces of its mold for times to come, so we got all the old and newly picked up Fab India pieces polished by a polisher from the carpenter’s team.  We’d have to wait for another round of Monsoons to see if they remain that way. Incidentally, two folding chairs from Cottage Emporium in Gurgaon didn’t catch any mold so Cottage wins over Fab India in that area.

Cooking gas cylinders and stoves

We went through the regular process of hunting down a cooking gas agency close at hand, submitting our address proof, and paying the required money to pick up a stove+cylinder kit. All of that took 2 working days. Not bad for Goa. What is worrying, however, is the process of refilling a gas cylinder that we’re still to experience but have heard long stories about.  Refills are booked by payment in advance (so with a visit to the supplier) and then waiting outside on the road for a delivery vehicle on a particular day of the week when it covers that geographic area. On one of those days, one can see several red cylinders lined up outside houses to swap empty with the filled. Quite involved, we Delhites would say.

Among appliances available off-the-shelf, we learnt about induction cookers offering some reliable functionality–it’s just that I wasn’t too happy depending entirely on electrical appliances in a place I can’t plan for a power backup.  Also, I believe that induction cookers get too hot for Indian cooking which often requires adjusting of flame. But the more adventurous ones can check out this option.

Electricity and panchayat enrollment

We found the Electricity office in Porvorim (got to it with the help of a local electrician) better organized and more efficient than those seen in Gurgaon. Its officers opened registers and got up from their seats without asking for extra favours and gave details on how we should get our name in their records or make advance payment of monthly bills. They accepted hurriedly written applications on plain paper that I’m always mindful of carrying, and on the last visit we were relieved to find our names on bills lying in our mailbox.

The Panchayat office in our area was also better than the Tehsil of Gurgaon. It was tiny with 2 even-tinier rooms and 2 computers lying firmly switched off.  I noticed though that waiting patiently for one’s turn, smiling every now and then, and submitting the basic background documents with a handwritten application helped us in achieving everything we wanted to accomplish there.

Car rental options

Before each visit to Goa,  we generally make some enquiries about the most economical car rental option and from Rs1,000/day of early days, we’ve now found people offering their small cars for Rs500/day. We’re always on the lookout for better priced options so if anyone has leads, please share them. For those who ride 2-wheelers and only need to do short rides, I’m told that 2-wheelers are available at Rs100/day.

There is much to share on food discoveries of Goa so I’d do a separate note on the subject when feeling adequately inspired.  Meanwhile, if any soul wants any specific information on leads given here, just leave a request as a comment.

And, if you’ve your own Goa based experience to share, I’d be interested in your thoughts or the link to your post.

This month an assignment meant appraising profiles for an IT support engineer’s role, so much time was spent scanning resumes, talking to applicants, and, gratefully, finalizing hiring of a candidate.  The experience has made me appreciate challenges recruiters must face in preparing interview shortlists.

Why only interview shortlists? Well, if this first step can be fraught with so many challenges, how would a recruiter have any headway with the actual talent appraisal, use of assessment tools, background check and hiring?

Objective of a Resume

Absolutely all the resumes I got to see began with a career objective – it’s like a template has been accepted by young IT folks as the best model and everyone in the industry is religiously following it. A couple of candidates offered exactly the same career objective, including errors in English, and some made their statement long winding and full of many phrases strung together laboriously. The end-product was either incomprehensible or monotonous. Here’s an example:

Looking for an opportunity and Organization, which provides challenges opening new vistas to learn
And successfully implement the technical knowledge I acquired through my education and previous
Experience that would ultimately help in gaining job satisfaction and achieving my carrier goal.

What do you think?  If the objective of a resume is to win an interview, then hasn’t this opening statement worked against that plan?

The only point these statements helped me establish was that most candidates didn’t proofread their text or knew enough grammar to construct sentences. That aspect was helpful in sifting resumes as a reasonable level of writing skills was an important consideration for the role.

But, I’d have happily shortlisted those who hadn’t included a career objective statement and had simply provided the main skills, academic qualifications and career history as that format would have made my task of tallying their experience with the role requirement far easier. Later, a phone interview would have helped establish adequacy of spoken skills.

So, I’d say that Lesson 1 for young professionals in resume writing is to resist the temptation of copying a friend’s career objective statement, and focus on their own achievements and experience in simple words.

Missing cover letter

It seems to me that some applicants provide a long career statement to avoid including a customized cover letter.  They should know that skipping a cover letter is simply bad etiquette. A cover letter to one’s resume can be brief but should maintain a polite tone, highlight experience that positions one’s candidature positively, and mention any preferred time for a possible phone interview.

I’d, therefore, make Lesson 2 as the absolute need to craft a brief cover letter and not be lazy about writing those few sentences.

Language and typing errors

All said and done, the most basic requirement of a resume and its cover letter is to make them free of typing errors. While language errors can be due to gaps in one’s grammar (common problem with many of us), leaving spelling errors or showing careless formatting (no space after a comma or unnecessary capitalization of words) is indicative of the individual’s lack of attention to detail or, as a geek helpfully pointed out, use of a text editor instead of a word processing program.

Lesson 3, therefore, is to proofread one’s submission a couple of times to rule out language or formatting errors if one wants a hearing.

In the end, I’d share two resources that would help further:

…a sample resume that reads smart:

http://humanresources.about.com/od/selectemployees/a/resume_best_2.htm

…and a list of verbs or ‘action words’ to use for describing one’s experience:

http://distancelearn.about.com/od/usingyourdegree/a/15verbs.htm

…is an aspect of professional life where I thought I’d long held a consistent opinion – that it was important for individuals to experience their weekends as just that — end of a work-week.  So they could recharge their energy levels for the week ahead. I hadn’t ever thought, however, that the end of a work day came religiously at a certain hour as that attitude to working had been akin to an uninspiring, robotic work model where one’s relationship to work didn’t mean much to an individual.  Something I hadn’t ever wanted for myself.  So when I come across individuals declaring that they cannot bear to look at a screen once back home, I don’t think highly of that perspective of their work … I’ve always wanted people to be invested in their work so they should feel inspired to bring their work to a satisfactory level each day — and if that doesn’t happen in those hours onsite, a laptop in hand can always change that later. However, I realize that this view is all very well for folks like me who’re addicted to their screens, have blurred lines between what they read or do at work or for pleasure, and do not have the constraints of a fixed location of work every day. Most professionals have it tough at work in terms of deliverables, meetings, deadlines and targets, and they’re only too relieved to switch it all off to take that long drive back home.

A read of Jessica Lee’s post on the subject has further cleared my confusion on the subject. As usually happens with popular blogs, the comments on her post add such great value to the subject that I’d recommend them as highly as the post itself. And, I agree that work-life balance is about choices that people make about how they want to spend their time; by choosing to forego higher ratings, appreciation from supervisors, gratitude from colleagues or finished targets for whatever it is they do off work. The point on whether HR can influence that mindset is important – I believe that it’s HR’s ethical responsibility to clearly communicate the work culture so the person can choose to accept that work or move on, and keep a perspective that helps his employer.

What’s your own view of using your keyboard after 6:00 pm?

Now that the important ‘whys’ of instituting a planned exit process are covered (in the previous post), I’d like to share my views on the process itself:

Short internal (online) process:  An online questionnaire on the company intranet or via email should capture feedback on the overall experience, and this segment of the exit process should be focussed on the transfer of knowledge on networks created and tools used for work efficacy. An online process would ensure openness and accuracy of such feedback.

Face to face interview with the successor:  Based on the questionnaire, the identified successor or another team member should probe further on the information provided by the candidate so it’s complete and usable.

3^rd party management: A feedback interface should be handled by a 3^rd party service provider where the focus of the interview should be on getting inputs on : the overall work experience with the company; interaction with colleagues and management; performance management system; any challenges faced; work-life balance;  suggestions on improving processes or work environment, and, very importantly, on possibilities of returning to the company at a later date. This is in recognition of the time and training invested in the individual, and an experienced candidate being a much better option for a company than a newly recruited one.

Confidentiality of feedback: It’s imperative that confidentiality of candidate identity is maintained by the 3^rd party interviewer to ensure the candidate openness in providing feedback and for these inputs to truly aid policy reforms, if any warranted.

Phone versus face to face interviews: Phone interviewing can be fairly effective with the genre of people who’re comfortable using the phone—which is to say all executives, managerial or technical people.

Structured interview:  It is necessary for the 3^rd party interview process to be structured so it attempts to collect inputs against the given variables for analysis over a period.

Empathy and respect: There is much awkwardness in the atmosphere where an exiting employee could be feeling hurt or supervising managers somewhat angry but it’s necessary that feelings are appreciated and respect accorded by both sides. This also applies to the approach of the 3^rd party interviewer who mustn’t just see her role as that of the company appointed executor of a process. She must be friendly and respectful to the exiting employee as much as, if not more, she is with the company HR team.

Listen, rephrase and listen some more:  Many candidates entrust faith in the process of feedback and share lots on their experience, some of which could even be peripheral to the company’s needs for information from them, but it sure helps that an interviewer listens carefully, rephrases some critical inputs at some juncture to secure further trust and, therefore, truthful feedback.

Suggestions on improvements: An experienced employee leaving would have pertinent suggestions on gaps in policies and how they might be bridged. It’s necessary to get those suggestions and consider them to make this process truly helpful for the employer.

Taking notes: If interviewers feel that they would simply remember what a candidate is sharing, then they aren’t doing justice to the process of obtaining feedback. Taking notes through the interview is essential to maintain sanctity of inputs.

Share quantitative and qualitative data: So much of the exit interviewing process, in the end, is dependent on what is done with the collected data; it’s absolutely necessary to analyse it over short and long periods to detect trends and consider a relationship between various variables to have a deeper understanding of reasons of attrition. Qualitative data remains important too, and, as far as possible, should be passed along verbatim while withholding candidate identity.

Do let me know if any aspect of exit interviewing has remained uncovered from my thoughts.

One of my assignments sees me having conversations with employees exiting a company. The discussions happen mostly over the phone, and I’ve to admit that barring a couple of cases, till now I’ve enjoyed the experience of being a confidant to unknown and unseen professionals. I’ve also been amazed to see the difference in the emotions they have shared in a quick feedback chat.

Most exude positivity on various policies even while passing along concerns. Conversely, some sound highly depressed, and that makes the conversation heart-wrenching and mentally exhausting. Some years ago, my own experience of exiting a company was stressful for me and devoid of any apparent feedback process, that now I’m glad to see companies viewing the employee exit process as more than just a staff farewell tea and settlement of dues. At some point, I’d like to go over the possible mechanisms to increase employee retention and what it is that matters to people. But this and the next post will simply emphasise the need for viewing the opportunity as a feedback process, and how it can be carried out.

To my mind and in my experience, a planned exit process and interview can become a method to:

• learn about gaps in organizational policies and management style
• understand and diffuse organizational politics hampering employee engagement
• create brand ambassadors by seeking constructive feedback and creating an atmosphere of mutual respect
• get the high potential exited employees back into the company at a later date
• identify training and development needs
• improve upon recruitment and induction processes
• transfer useful knowledge on contacts or experiences to successors

The aspects of opening itself to feedback or incurring some expenditure on the process are not only small prices to pay by an organization for the above, having a planned exit process is also a best practice for managing one’s employees.

When you have Technologist for spouse, your birthday present would likely be an iPod Touch and a wedding Anniversary could well bring a Kindle… Am I complaining? Not really, for these gadgets keep me feeling younger than my age…probably by doing to the brain what solving crosswords helps achieve. New gadgets and their convenience also perpetually invoke feelings of gratitude in me for living my life in the present times instead of my great grandparents…

A gadget such as iPod Touch could however mean different things to different people. It could remain a portable music player or video viewer for many or become a dependable link to most of one’s resources—as it is to me. The difference is in the hands it reaches…you as the user or your tech spouse (or daughter or another relative) whose vision of any application or device is its seamless integration with its user’s life. So while Kishore was polite to let me be the first one to open its seal, it’s only after he’d spent some hours with it that it appeared a great device to have.

Two months of its ownership, and here’s what my iPod Touch facilitates for me—and hopefully, the list will get longer as I get more ideas:

Email client: I’m using the Mail app to read (or send) mail from my 3 different email accounts without anxieties about losing any of it as the incoming mail eventually pops into my Netbook‘s email client.

Twitter client: Using Echofon on it to see (or send) my Twitter feeds.

Blog/website aggregator: Newswire is letting me read my subscriptions made from Google Reader, and leaves the updates on Reader too.

Browser: Safari lets me browse sites of interest even while my Netbook is booting–or resting after long use.

LinkedIn updates: A free app brings on it my LinkedIn mail and updates.

Facebook updates: Same as above, and this mobile interface looks cleaner than the web interface.

Calendar: A precious tool to me as I depend on my Calendar‘s reminders for most regular of my tasks, it’s synchronised with the Google Calendar app of my gmail account.

Contacts: Again, synchronised with my contact database on Google, I’m seeing them getting updated without forcing a ‘hot sync’ as I had to do for Palm.

Notes: Some useful data and checklists of various kinds have been neatly brought into this free app.

Documents: Useful bird sighting trip reports, region checklists of birds, some spreadsheets and other text files are available for me to dip into by directing the free Document reader to Google docs.

To-do lists: Awesome Note allows me to track my to-do lists and any ideas worth jotting down. I’d been feeling quite out of sorts till I found this app (again free) for daily and long term tasks.

Ebooks: Stanza allows me to read ebooks saved on the device for those offline situations that I constantly find myself in as I leave the wifi zone of home or Linkaxis office.

Music: 2 GB music on the device comprises of some unheard and oft-heard audiobooks and Hindi/western music.

Internet radio: Tunemark helps access lots of varying music through internet radio channels for states of mind when my own collection feels inadequate.

Photos: Have just 30 or so treasured pics of people and places that I can use as wallpaper.

Youtube: One of my least used apps, it gives me a direct search and use of videos on youtube.com.

Videos: Interestingly, an otherwise overly used app, I’m still to use it for any movies or videos I want to travel with.

Weekly weather: Weather helps make a judicious choice of clothes by giving max/min temp for the day and the next 5 days!

Currency converter: Currency allows conversion between 2 chosen currencies and I find it useful instead of calculating in the air by using a vague conversion rate.

Time zones: Clock permits 4 different time zones in a glance—useful for planning those international phone calls, set an alarm or use it as a stopwatch.

Calculator: Works like any other calculator.

I’d been thinking that an instant messenger client would make every sense on the device but before I went around checking if the idea was possible, this read came my way declaring ebuddy as a good multiservice IM client, so I’ll be clubbing my multiple accounts with that.

Some of my favourite games on iPod Touch are Scramble2, Hangman, Checkers, Dots, TickTacTouch, eSudoku, Chess, all of which are available free and the uninitiated need to experience the ease of download to believe it.

This brings the tally to 22 apps without the games…isn’t this impressive for something just labeled as a multimedia player and for a non-techie user like me?

Now your turn to tell me if this list:

1. tempts you enough to wish for it as a gift or
2. pushes you to use your existing Touch for any of these functions or
3. gets you to share with me any crucial uses that still escape me?

Recently, a friend expressed interest in ‘going social’ for his new HR technology product and asked if I’d help chalk out a plan by first showing him any products that had attracted an unprecedented fan-following in the last couple of years. That set me off on an intense exercise to scour the Net and extricate success stories, and later to draw my lessons for the product in question.

At the end of a couple of days of fierce reading and mulling, I presented him the fruit of my labour in the form of some b2b and b2c product success stories where companies had proved that by engaging with their customers through their websites, focussed discussion forums and social networking channels, they’d succeeded in allaying fears for new technology or using a new idea. I’ve listed out those case study links at the end to help those wading through Netoceanic waters for similar pearls. My takeaways from these case studies are specific to the HR technology product so I’m not including those.

However, these cases are global and not India-specific.

I know that a lot of us would like to figure how a social media initiative by a company or an individual in India managed to broaden its customer base or in the very least connected with its audience. While I’m looking out for such successful programs, I’ve got a small but significant personal experience to share.

Less than two months ago, I’d goaded a friend in Goa into opening a Facebook group to broadcast his store’s product range. I gave him some ideas on getting members for the group and shared with him an article from Mashable on how 5 small businesses had seen success through social media. He was excited at the prospect of making sales without making a huge investment into advertising but so nervous was he about entering untreaded tech territories that I’d to find him this short article on opening a Facebook group. He didn’t just open a group, but he took a cue from the Mashable read and some days later, put up pictures of some colourful but expensive leather boots as new entrants in his product range. A new ‘Facebook friend’ of his from Gurgaon, who’d joined his group through a t-shirt designer’s group they shared, messaged him to enquire about the available sizes and their prices. He responded with details through Facebook and asked her if she’d like any pair couriered but didn’t get a response. What he did get some days later was a visit to his store from an acquaintance of her’s with hand-drawn foot sizes to buy all 3 shoes displayed on his Facebook group!

For some time, the friend could hardly believe what he’d witnessed – a buyer for expensive merchandise in the still non-peak sale period of Goa and that too in the form of an Indian and not a dollar-rich foreigner! His faith in all things technological has elevated since then and he’s all for rustling up resources for a well-designed and populated product gallery on his website, and of course for having a direct hand in promoting it through his new found social networking methods

They’re right in saying that social media is for anyone with a clear set of objectives and a plan to follow. And, it sure helps that it’s an enjoyable way to further a cause.

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Case Studies

Agilent Technologies

http://signal-integrity.tm.agilent.com/

http://www.webinknow.com/2009/08/colin-warwick-shows-how-a-b2b-company-makes-the-first-page-on-google.html

Eloqua

http://illuminate.eloqua.com/

http://blogs.forrester.com/groundswell/2009/10/winners-of-the-2009-forrester-groundswell-awards.html

MetricStream

http://www.groundswelldiscussion.com/groundswell/awards2009/detail.php?id=124

http://complianceonline.com/cms/cms/Offline/index.html?category_id=20013&ind=/Offline/Industry/HR_Compliance/

SAP

http://www.engagementdb.com/downloads/ENGAGEMENTdb_Report_2009.pdf

Zappos

http://mashable.com/2009/04/26/zappos/

http://www.zappos.com/

Ford Motor

http://mashable.com/2009/05/18/ford-social-media/

Apple

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/next/archives/2009/07/jonathan_ive_th.html

Dell

http://smartblogs.com/socialmedia/2009/10/02/how-dell-took-social-media-mainstream/

http://www.engagementdb.com/downloads/ENGAGEMENTdb_Report_2009.pdf

Enough is being said about engaging audiences through social media channels to create friends and followers. My experience of Twitter even shows me that users are vigilant of feedback to their tweets in that space and making an effort to revert in real time. They don’t always succeed but where a DM (direct message) is possible, it usually gets one a quick reaction.

In LinkedIn group conversations too, where groups are moderated well and don’t see noise in the form of job postings or ‘invite me’ posts, discussions are being read, valued and considered relationship-forming. Facebook being a ground mostly for bonding with friends, family and fans also sees a reasonable degree of promptness in feedback.

However, the social media channel that is suffering due to neglect by some is my long-time favourite online conversation tool – a blog. My concern isn’t so much that many erstwhile active bloggers aren’t blogging regularly anymore. But it is that many bloggers were always sluggish about responding to their commenters, and even now when avenues of information for online readers are multiplying at a breakneck speed and comments on their posts have dwindled, these advocates of social networking  DO NOT respond to feedback coming in as comments to their posts. And, I wonder why they believe that despite that attitude, they’ll maintain their fan-following. For, as the online reader gets more mature, s/he would shun those spaces that are not civilised enough!

So, if you’re reading those comments to your blog posts—as I believe most bloggers enjoy doing whether they’re negative or positive—please consider them precious and connect with your readers by responding to their feedback. This case study of Boeing has many interesting elements to it, but I’d draw your attention to the second last paragraph on the blogger’s advice on interacting with one’s readers to create useful conversations.