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?

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

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

LinkedIn

1. Use the single sentence template offered by LinkedIn to invite people. Some individuals have amazed me by saying that they use the impersonal single sentence invite instead of personalising their request because they fear the latter would bother people! Unless people have no idea of objectives of professional networking or they completely mistrust their ability to write two personalised sentences, I’d like to know how it’d disturb anyone to know why this individual is interested in connecting? The sole purpose of forming connections on this professional forum can’t be as mindless as seeing one’s network get populated superficially, so I’d say it makes every sense to use the invite to highlight how directions are aligning hence a request for connection.
2. Keep sketchy data on one’s profile. I realise that it can be time-consuming to complete one’s profile on LinkedIn—especially arranging recommendations for it. But please do not open a LinkedIn account just to put your name, a vaguely worded professional interest full of typing errors, and expect that people should know you enough from it to accept your invite. At least desist from sending invites to people till you fill your school/college education, work history and a few lines as your profile summary. It can remain work-in-progress after that but would still convey some basic background data on you for broadening your network.
3. Missing photo. I don’t plan to judge my professional connections on the basis of their looks nor do I want to be judged on mine, but I consider it plain bad manners for people to leave a gaping hole in place of their profile photo and reach out to all and sundry to make connections. The LinkedIn profile is like an identity document on an individual and built in to support the virtual handshake one is attempting with several people so please ‘paste’ your photo on this ID.

Twitter

1. Tweet and RT (retweet) quotes on a regular basis. While one or two inspiring quotes can have an uplifting effect on one’s thought process, I come across individuals tweeting them as if their life depends on that exercise! Don’t they realise that the Net is bursting at its seams with resources of that kind and they’re just irking their followers with those tweets?
2. Tweet Jokes. Same sentiment applies as above. Please use the tool to connect with people but why fill their timeline with untimely humour repeatedly? If you do not have an original view to share, please wait till you do for reading of myriad viewpoints and blog posts is sure to bring in thoughts of your own to tweet. In any case, responding to tweeted questions is a great way to add value to interaction on Twitter and do that till you get fresh ideas of your own.
3. Tweet your meal and bodily routines. This one really gets me to unfollow individuals, and makes for a reason for my low ‘following’ number! Really, who’s interested to see a crowded timeline with tweets on when one is sleeping or having lunch…unless one is broadcasting a great eating place or food item. When you’re awake, inform your followers of your wakeful state by tweeting coherent and helpful bits of information, and that would help everyone’s cause.

Facebook

1. Friends writing on a friend’s wall instead of sending a private message. To educate friends on using the two mediums sensibly has not been easy for me. Most just feel inclined to fill the visible empty box of Wall than seek out the option of ‘send a message to friend’.
2. Friends sending invites to frivolous applications. I can appreciate a friend’s need to reinforce common characteristics but new users of Facebook get too enthusiastic about all the colourful applications they come across and not only get stuck with them, they also get other friends trapped into them. Please exercise self-control when you’re prompted to send an invite to the last quiz you attempted.
3. Individuals putting their family photos as their profile photo. Why do people do that? To ward off unsolicited advances? Why don’t they just mention their relationship status appropriately to send the right message? I can’t think of another reason for putting the whole family or a couple’s photo as one’s own. Everyone has a unique face and should be represented through his/her own here too.

I can think of a couple more things but I promised to stick to a 3-point list so over to you to share yours on making social networking a pleasant experience

So, is it justified to ‘live it up’ at work because one is mostly at work? Is it alright to make one’s social phone calls from work or, these days, complete one’s social obligations by constantly checking and responding to the goings on in their friends’ lives on Facebook or IM? Or, for that matter, intersperse one’s work day with regular reads of RSS feeds?

I don’t think so.

I believe that a work place is for making your contribution towards your organisation’s business and productivity, and reading for self-development or relaxation is best kept for hours when you ought to be relaxing. With myriad avenues for social networking through the Net, there is a higher need for us to exercise self-regulation rather than have the HR and IT devote their resources into analysing employee usage of IM or entertainment sites from work. I also believe that regular self-development is essential and employees must be encouraged to leave their work place early enough to read, blog, tweet and generally do what they must to refuel for the next day. And, if employees find their supervisor’s watching over (MBWA) demeaning, they must exercise self-regulation and, while at work, use social networking to advance their company’s interests.

Here’s some more from Steve Tobak and his commenters on the subject.

The term telecommuting or teleworking has been in use for a couple of decades but it has to still gain widespread acceptance in India where much emphasis goes on adherence to a fixed reporting time at one’s workplace and to ‘management by watching over’. For instance, at my last work place, employees were even made to keep their computer screens visible to passers by to prevent any recreational use!

So…what is telecommuting or teleworking?

To me the term simply means to commute or work using telecommunications. I prefer the term telework over telecommute because the former means what it implies – using technology to work. Telecommuting, on the other hand, could be for work or pleasure. In corporate circuits though the words are being used interchangeably.

The duration of telework could vary from one or two days in a week to an indefinite plan to work off-site.

So…what are its benefits?

The benefits are many. The ones that quickly come to mind are that teleworking:

• Saves costs of real estate
• Saves expenses on on-site employee benefits such as food, beverage and other facilities
• Retains talent that is under compulsion to quit for reasons other than dissatisfaction from job
• Offers flexibility to employees for better work-life balance and therefore motivates the workforce
• Reduces recruitment and training costs
• Saves time spent on physical commutes
• Helps cut vehicular pollution by reducing physical commutes
• Reduces traffic congestion on roads
• Reduces use of fuel
• Reduces stress due to long physical commutes
• Reduces absenteeism due to vagaries of weather

And, those that don’t easily come to mind but do make sense are that teleworking:

• Increases employee productivity and performance – fewer interruptions in the form of phone calls or colleagues dropping in for a chat translate into higher productivity.
• Enables employees working through different time zones to converge on projects.
• Provides a wider choice in the talent pool – disabled, elderly, single parents, mothers with young children, women in conservative societies who’re prevented from going out to work and more.
• Allows a viable business continuity solution – for natural disasters, strikes and other crises.

I’d also like to point those interested to some resources I’ve enjoyed going over:

• The faq compiled by this long-standing expert on the subject addresses some important managerial and worker concerns: http://www.gilgordon.com/telecommuting/adminfaq/admin01.htm

• Jack Nilles is acknowledged as the inventor of terms telecommuting and teleworking, and other than maintaining a repository of documents on telework on his site, he posts his thoughts on the subject and provides a helpful tool to enable cost-benefit analyses from both employer and employee viewpoints: http://www.jala.com/homecba_input.php

• This is a great resource on living and working green – I particularly like the writer’s sentiment about telecommuting being an elegant way of doing things: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/05/telecommuting_w.php

• I couldn’t agree more with this writer’s advice to move beyond debates of advantages versus disadvantages, and take lessons from IBM on strengthening their corporate culture and having their managers learn to lead virtual teams: http://www.itworld.com/070314virtualwork

• One of the rare India-specific studies I could find on the Net dates back to the year 2000 and makes less than encouraging observations about manager perception at that time – on the basis of data collected from cities of Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkatta: www.sacw.net/Labour/SMitter.pdf

• A study from 2006 that declares telework having diffused to a large number of organisations but mostly in the garb of supplementary telework, mobile telework, virtual teams, e-collaborations and not as originally understood home-based work: http://www.merlien.org/oj/index.php/JOE/article/view/2/2

• And if the above has you looking for more, you’d like exploring : http://www.hr-guide.com/data/011.htm

Let me know if you have any thoughts or useful resources to add to mine.