What are the advantages of Work from Home Policy

QUESTION :

What do you think are the advantages of Work From Home Policy of a Company ?

RAGHAV :

Many companies have realized the need to provide better work options to its employees. The following article captures the top 10 benefits of WFH Policy.

Happy Reading

Raghav
Founder HRinIndia
Indias Biggest HR Network
www.hrinindia.in
#
HR Guru & Strategist
Bangalore, India
9880080321

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You want to work from home, but your boss might not support the idea. Don’t blame your boss — it’s a lot of change. Don’t make the mistake of telling your boss that you’ll be happier, and therefore more productive, working from home. Your boss won’t care about your state of mind. Instead, spend a little time researching telecommuting statistics that your boss can care about. In short, show your boss how telecommuting will improve or help business.

#1: Your place is cheaper than theirs
Office space doesn’t come cheap. Rented office space runs the extremes, but with an average of $33 a square foot (per year), it adds up. According to Innovisions Canada, organizations can eliminate one office for every three telecommuters. Just a few money-saving examples should encourage any manager to consider your proposal:
· AT&T reduced office-space costs by 50%.
· IBM saved $56 million a year after reducing office space by 2 million square feet.
· Merrill Lynch saves $5,000 to $6,000 a year for each office it eliminates.
· Georgia Power saves $100,000 a year after reducing office space.
· The March 2008 issue of The Teleworker reports that Dow Chemical’s administrative costs dropped 50% and it attributes 1% of those savings to telecommuting.
Realistically, you’re just one person, but you could start a trend. The movement has to start somewhere. If it’s good for big business, why not yours?


#2: Your productivity will increase
It’s hard to convince some managers that you’ll be more productive at home. Seeing your little bobblehead lends comfort, albeit false security. Just because your boss can see you doesn’t mean you’re working. If your word won’t get the job done, try statistics:
· According to a 2008 survey by Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA), 67% of respondents said their organizations were productive thanks to part-time and full-time telecommuting.
· In the March 2008 issue of The TeleWorker, American Express claims its telecommuters produce 43% more business than officer workers.
· A survey by the Massachusetts Division of Energy Resources and the Massachusetts Highway Department reported an improvement in productivity: 82% to 87%of telecommuting employees felt they were more productive; 96.7% to 100% of supervisors reported increased productivity for their telecommuters.
Then there’s the creative aspect, which is hard to quantify. Frankly, some of us get more work done between 3:00 AM and 5:00 AM than those at the office working 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Now, this is more about you than the business, but it won’t hurt to let your employer know that you often work those extra hours, if you do.
The word is out: Telecommuting employees spend more time working when they’re not commuting and interacting with co-workers.

#3: Employee retention will go up
Threatening to quit if you can’t work from home is a bad idea; few of us are indispensable. However, if you have a long commute, working from home is a reasonable request. If you’re a valued employee, working from home a few days a week is preferable to losing you to a company that’s closer to home.
In CompTIA’s 2008 survey, 37% of respondents said telecommuting improves employee retention. Another 39% said they have access to more qualified personnel, who don’t always live within commuting distance, thanks to telecommuting.
A recent study by The Journal of Applied Psychology found that stress due to tense relationships at work is a major factor in the decision to quit a job. These people aren’t hard to get along with, they just don’t like office politics. Telecommuting, at least part-time, can reduce that stress and keep key people from leaving your organization. That kind of give and take has the added bonus of building company loyalty.


#4: You’ll increase your billable hours
Anyone who bills clients directly knows how difficult it is to differentiate billable tasks from non-billable interruptions. When other people have access to you, they access you! At the end of the day, how much time did you actually spend on billable tasks? At home, you have fewer interruptions and that adds up to more billable hours. That means more revenue, quicker solutions, and more time for new clients, which means more money.

#5: You’ll be running with the crowd
Everybody’s doing it. Robert Half Technology surveyed 1,400 CIOs and found that 47% offered more flexible schedules, including telecommuting, to improve job satisfaction and build loyalty. Here are a few more national statistics from WorldatWork:
· 12.4 million U.S. workers telecommute at least one day a month.
· The number of employees who telecommute one day a month increased 25% from 2004 to 2005.
· WorldatWork estimates that 100 million U.S. workers will telecommute by 2010.

#6: Your relationships will improve
The study by The Journal of Applied Psychology mentioned earlier found that telecommuting helped improve the relationships between supervisors and staff. In a telecommuting environment, everyone works hard to stay in touch. They see each other less, but they often communicate more efficiently and effectively than people sharing the same office space.

#7: It’s the green thing to do
Being green isn’t just trendy, it can save your company money. A study commissioned by the US Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) reported that telecommuting saves 9 to 14 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year — the equivalent of one million U.S. households. That equates to energy savings for your company. How much will of course depend on the company’s size and the number of employees who are telecommuting. The study also estimated that 3.9 million telecommuters reduce fuel consumption by about 840 million gallons and carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 14 million tons. While that won’t change your department’s bottom line, with today’s gas prices, your boss might decide to start telecommuting too!
Traffic isn’t just about fuel and emissions. The Texas Transportation Institute concluded that gridlock (traffic) cost $78 billion annual, or 4.2 billion lost hours. Instead of sitting in traffic, you could be working, if you worked at home.

#8: Politicking will go down
It’s hard to share gossip from a home office. Yes, there’s always e-mail, IM, and phone calls, but it just isn’t the same. You might not be prone to participating in office politics or gossip, but sharing the same space with those who are affects your attitude and even your work. Nothing zaps productivity and morale like gossip and rumors. A home office can filter (protect you from) the undesirable aspects of sharing space with miserable human beings. If this is a problem, believe me, your manager already knows it. Showing sensitivity to t
he issue and wanting to separate yourself from it is admirable and professional.
Warning: Not every boss will agree with you. Some believe you should be above such shenanigans and you will appear petty if you even hint at such problems. Know your boss before you put this one on the table.


#9: You’ll be more accessible

In an episode of Seinfield, George napped under his desk. Everyone thought he was very busy because he was never available. He was really just asleep. If you’re not in your office, maybe you’re in the copy room, or a conference room, or the library — there are many places to hide at work.

If your boss calls your home office and you don’t answer, just where are you? Realistically, you could be busy with a biological call, letting the dog in, letting the cat out, and so on. The point is, you can’t hide at home for very long. You must return a voicemail or e-mail quickly because your boss knows you’re not in the copy room, a conference room, or the library. You’re at home, and your boss knows where you live.

Not only are you more accessible to your boss and co-workers, you’re more accessible to clients. Business hours and time zones don’t limit you. (On second thought, maybe you might want to keep that benefit to yourself.)


#10: It’s a weather-proof arrangement
In January 1994, my employer shut down for a full week after Mother Nature dumped about 20 inches of snow on the region. Depending on where you work, this might be an important issue. Weather won’t disrupt your commute across the hall.

Source : techrepublic.com
Author : Susan Harkins

How will a company benefitted by SAP HR ?

QUESTION :

Raghav Sir,

Can you please let me know how a company can benefit from implementing SAP with particular reference to SAP

RAGHAV :



A good question.

A classical example of how Jet Airways was benefited implementing SAP is given in the below mentioned article. To give a brief introduction about ERP - wikipedia defines Enterprise resource planning (ERP) as the planning of how business resources (materials, employees, customers etc.) are acquired and moved from one state to another.

An ERP system supports most of the business system that maintains in a single database the data needed for a variety of business functions such as Manufacturing, Supply Chain Management, Financials, Projects, Human Resources and Customer Relationship Management.

An ERP system is based on a common database and a modular software design. The common database can allow every department of a business to store and retrieve information in real-time. The information should be reliable, accessible, and easily shared. The modular software design should mean a business can select the modules they need, mix and match modules from different vendors, and add new modules of their own to improve business performance.

Ideally, the data for the various business functions are integrated. In practice the ERP system may comprise a set of discrete applications, each maintaining a discrete data store within one physical database.

If you wish to know how Jet Airways benefitted by SAP HR click here :
www.hrudaya1.blogspot.com

Happy Reading !

Raghav
Founder HRinIndia
Indias Biggest HR Network
www.hrinindia.in
raghav@hrinindia.in
#
HR Guru & Strategist
Bangalore, India
9880080321

Please let me know more about emerging Trends in HR Outsourcing

Question :

Raghav can you please let me know about the latest in emerging HR Outsourcing trends in India.

Raghav :
It is glad that you have asked a very good question. HROutsourcing is a very big business in the US and in India it is yet to catch up. Please go through the article and the link to understand the progress in this regard.

Happy reading

Raghav
Founder HRinIndia
Indias Biggest HR Network

www.hrinindia.in
raghav@hrinindia.in
#
HR Guru & Strategist
Bangalore, India

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Article :

With the growing market there are a number of vendors available who cater to the diverse needs of various markets and provide HR services, including staffing, payroll, benefits administration, training, employee relations, and compensation. Consequently, what started in the 1980s as a simple payroll outsourcing has exploded into a $32 billion a year business involving all facets of HR. In just four years, one HR services provider--Exult--has grown from a start-up with a handful of people to an established company with 1,500 employees and more than $400 million in annual revenues. Other big players include Accenture HR Services, ADP, Fidelity, Hewitt, and Convergys.

To read further click here : http://tinyurl.com/4kbsbb

Author : Sanjib dutta
Source : www.icmrindia.org


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Recruiters Transition from Consulting to Corporate Jobs

Moving from Consulting to Companies !

One of the greatest bug that bites anyone who is into recruitments in consulting companies is to move to Corporate. Obviously there are many cases of recruiters moving from consulting firms to corporate corridors !

Understandably corporate firms give more benefits besides offering job security. Basically the content of the job remains the same - as they used to work in staffing companies.

How to Move ?

The next big question is how to make a transition from Consulting firm to Corporate Job ?

There are many ways you can explore and explain few :

Talk :
By virtue of having worked with your clients you must have established good contacts in the Industry. Try talking to them about your ambition of moving to their company and explore if there exists any opportunity in them ! Just in case the company where your contacts are working do not have any job openings in recruitments ask them if they can suggest any other company that is seeking to hire recruiters !

Most of the companies surely wish to hire aggressive recruiters from leading search firms - they are becoming favorite hunting ground for them to source recruiters from recruitment companies.

Apply :
Keeping your ears to the ground will help you out in reaching your dream job in corporate company.

Have more questions go ahead and mail to askhrinidia@gmail.com

Raghav
Founder HRinIndia
Indias Biggest HR Network
www.hrinindia.in
#
HR Guru & Strategist
Bangalore, India
9880080321

What is RPO and how to frame SLA for RPO services ?

What is the SLA (Service Level Agreement) for RPO ( recruitment process outsourcing ) ? What are the precautions and guidelines for framing a SLA ?

Shrinking workforce, work-visa caps, recent expansion of economy coupled with general frustration with the results and costs associated with traditional recruiting models on the part HR leadership prompted demand for innovative ideas when it comes to talent acquisition and retention. Attracting and retaining talent is undoubtedly one of the top items on any executive’s priority list. One the most talked-about answers to this challenge is Recruiting Process Outsourcing (RPO). It has become one of the hottest buzz words and fastest growing areas of Human Resource Outsourcing (HRO), with HRO in turn representing as a sub-set of outsourcing initiatives within the broader Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry.

In a recent corporate buyer survey, close to 75% of respondents indicated that they have either recently engaged a talent acquisition provider or are actively involved in sourcing. This tremendous acceptance rate is clearly indicative of the next phase in RPO maturity. While there is still lack of commonly-shared definitions and standards, most decision-makers no longer need to be sold on the benefits of outsourcing the recruitment function as a concept. Despite some differences with traditional transaction-focused outsourcing models, recruiting outsourcing has been gaining ground not only in executive board rooms but also in the minds of hiring managers as a way to let their organizations concentrate on expanding the core competencies while outsourcing such resource-intensive and often difficult tasks as finding and retaining the right people.

Nowadays, some of the key challenges are in selecting the right vendor to partner with amongst a sea of companies claiming to be RPO providers as well as in coming up with common definitions for RPO and figuring out the standards and expectations. How do you navigate the RPO field full of providers claiming to be the most efficient, cost-effective and reliable partner?

Reviewing a potential vendor holistically is crucial. You have to look at their delivery capabilities, scalability, experience with requirements similar to yours, cultural fit and check references. Luckily some of the methods and lessons can be derived from other, slightly more mature BPO disciplines. As with any other outsourcing engagements, a successful RPO initiative is characterized by clear rules of engagement and consistent quantitative assessment of objectives and delivered results. Although most of the companies realize that need, often RPO engagements fail to establish a well-defined Service Level Agreements (SLA’s).

If you want to succeed in implementing an RPO, you must define Key Performance Indicators (KPI) in accordance to the scope of services being outsourced, establish a Service Level Agreement that would spell out the expected results for each KPI, and then monitor execution of the SLA on a frequent basis.

While the classic definition of Recruitment Process Outsourcing implies transferring the entire talent acquisition and retention function to an outside provider, some organizations choose to only outsource a sub-set of recruiting processes. Each company defines what a successful RPO engagement is based upon their unique needs. However, some common metrics such as “time-to–hire”, “cost per hire”, “Recruiting Cost as % of Revenue” are used across the board. Although all of these measurements are examples of KPI’s applied to track the HR function, they can not always be directly used to measure the success of PRO initiatives. A company entering in an RPO engagement should have clear objectives that are in line with the degree of control that company is willing to release to an outside party.

Applying the “end-goal” per-placement/per-hire KPI’s is absolutely fair when a provider has full control over the entire lifecycle, but other, more granular indicators should be used when you engage a RPO shop for something like phone screening prospective candidates or data cleansing. Let’s review some examples of applying appropriate metrics to track RPO progress depending on the degree of control given to an outside vendor.

As an example, Workforce Source acts as full-function recruiting department for a rapidly growing DC-based provider of electronic prescribing services designed to meet the needs of the physicians. “Time-to-hire”, “Cost per Hire” indicators are being used along with other KPI’s to see how Workforce Source stacks up against the other recruiting options: internal and contingency staffing agencies.

However, Workforce Source often gets engaged by organizations seeking help in sourcing and phone-screening candidates either for major staff expansion initiatives or for more tactical reasons. Once a candidate has been qualified as a fit by a WFS recruiter, he or she gets submitted to the client’s internal recruiter, and that recruiter is responsible for taking the candidate through all the remaining phases of the recruitment lifecycle (hiring manager interviews, reference background checks, offer negotiation, acceptance and on-boarding). Is reasonable to apply the “time-to-hire” and other end-goal measurements access the RPO provider’s performance? The answer is not really. Since the RPO provider in this case has no control over the entire lifecycle, a better set of indicators of their performance would be “Time-to-Qualified submission”, “Cost per Qualified Submission”, “Number of Qualified Submission per a Period of Time”.

Internal recruiters definitely play a key role in providing prompt and objective feedback on all presented candidates, and are expected to render an objective judgment in such subjective area as candidate qualification assessment. It’s definitely a challenge. Therefore, it’s extremely important to define specific assessment criteria and allowable deviations, such as experience, education, pay range, location/relocation requirement, citizenship limited, etc. It’s also important to measure internal recruiter’s buy-in and performance by introducing another KPI – “Time-to-Feedback”, which is usually the average amount of time elapsed between the time of candidate submission by the RPO vendor and fully-completed feedback submission returned to the vendore by the internal assessor.

Obviously, an experienced recruiter instinctively uses most of the above-described criteria anyway; however including them all explicitly in well formulated Service Level Agreement will help avoid unpleasant surprises and negative perceptions on both sides In recent years, SLA’s have become the standard in most of the IT outsourcing engagements. However, HRO still lags behind when it comes to putting firm service level expectations in place.

Oftentimes, it seems the HR managers are more focused on the immediate cost savings and run a risk of a wrong sourcing selection by going after a vendor who can offer the cheapest rate for a full-time equivalent basis. While trying to reduce costs, the buyers actually often overpay even compared to all the payroll and infrastructure overheads associated with the in-house option. SLA’s are meant to capture and summarize productivity and performance expectations, escalation and response procedures, communications and negotiation process which leads to openness, understanding between customer and RPO provider and effectively used to constantly monitor the overall success.

RPO Service level agreements are very simple in concept: they are agreements between an outsourcer and customer on numbers and often on the quality of the people to be hired. They are developed before the RPO engagement starts and may also contain incentives for the provider. They are almost always negotiated, rather than simply imposed by either party.

For example, an SLA might say that the RPO provider will present 15 pre-screened candidates matching client’s open job orders per week for each full-timer recruiter assigned to the account, or that standard turnaround time should not exceed 48 hours from the time of receiving a completed job requisition. It is important to understand that an SLA is a two-way agreement, and the client certainly carries some responsibilities as well.

As an example, the assigned recruiter or hiring manager might be required to provide feedback in a particular format and within a certain timeframe. While the SLA’s are meant to be very quantitative documents, they need to be flexible enough to allow for a certain degree of adjustment given that each assessor is characterized by his or her own personal style and standards.

SLA's guide the planning and sourcing efforts and help HR leaders establish processes to create robust talent agency. By knowing where growth will occur and what types of people organization is looking for, RPO provider can focus sourcing efforts and competitive intelligence activities to get the optimal results.

For example, one client collected and analyzed the SLA’s from across the company and saw a clear trend toward hiring more SAP functional analysts. In partnership with a training outsourcer, they proposed instituting an intensive training program for their current business analysts who were familiar with legacy systems. This was highly successful and lead to a reduction in recruiting costs, as well as helped avoid some planned layoffs. Only a handful of SAP analysts needed to be recruited from outside.

SLA’s outline customer satisfaction. If the agreements are properly negotiated, they, in effect, contain the ingredients of satisfaction. RPO provider and HR manager who have decided what success and quality look like will most likely find that they can quickly determine if things have worked well or not and where improvements need to happen.

SLA’s can be used as a way to compensate and manage RPO Providers. When a portion of RPO provider’s compensation is based on meeting the goals of the SLA, the day-to-day management of RPO provider becomes one of coaching them to success rather than that of monitoring activity. RPO providers will do the best they can to excel to maximize their margins. This approach ensures that providers focus on delivering results that clients see as the priority in their business.

An SLA typically contains multiple sections or sub-documents designed to fully describe the entire PRO engagement via a set measurable objectives and goals. Below is a list of sections comprising a typical RPO SLA’s:

Objectives and needs assessment
Scope Statement
Pricing and Cost Estimates
Organization Chart
KPI’s, measurements and metrics
Work schedules and communication
Response and Escalation Procedures
The Objectives section is really meant to be a roadmap for the engagement. It is very helpful when it comes to discussing Provider scalability.

The Scope Statement outlines the general areas of responsibility granted to the provider. It also typically spells out methods and sources to be used, sourcing and screening processes and candidate submission procedures.

The Pricing and Cost Estimates related the cost or services to the cost per KPI. Depending on the scope of work, this could be either cost per resume, cost per qualified submission, or cost per hire.

The Organization Chart shows the key players on each side, with their respective responsibilities and roles clearly defined and assigned.

The sections on KPI’s, measurements and metrics contain non-monetary performance measurements, such as the expected volume of submissions from a single resource per a period of time, and turnaround times on both ends. It also establishes the frequency and protocol for on-going performance monitoring.

The Work Schedules section describes expected hours of operation and cross-team communication procedures. The Response and Escalation section is a logical extension of the communication plan. Its objective is to establish a process for issue.

Given that the RPO market is getting saturated with providers whose claims can not be validated immediately, time spent in ascertaining, negotiating and monitoring is a solution is definitely time well-spent. If not done correctly, an outsourcing solution can not only be a costly proposition, but more importantly, can lead a lot of missed opportunities to acquire key human resources. “War for Talent” is definitely on and no organization can afford not to have a battle plan.

By Stan Anapol (sanapol@workforcesource.com)

What are the Best Recruiting Techniques ?

Question :
Please let me know according to you what are the best recruiting techniques to be adopted in the pursuit of talent acquisition.

Answer :
There are no golden principles which guarantee the candidate joining the company after picking up the offer. However i found the following article pretty interesting and may help you out in doing your best !

The Best of Lou Adler's Recruiting Rules

By Lou Adler, October 1, 2008

I’ve discovered a few critical recruiting principles over the past 30 years placing hundreds of top performers in staff, management, and executive positions. For marketing purposes, I call these Lou’s Recruiting Rules. If you learn and implement these twelve techniques from now on, on every search, you’ll call them lifesavers. Here’s my list of rules that will take you to the upper echelon of recruiters anywhere in the world:

1. Maintain Applicant Control.
Stay the buyer from first contact to offer extension and acceptance. When you start selling, you lose. This is the essence of applicant control. Most recruiters don’t have a clue as to what this means. They talk too much, don’t know how to use questions to uncover the candidate’s motivating needs, they over-sell, and they under-listen. This might be okay for placing average candidates, but it won’t work for top performers. For these people changing jobs requires a series of give-and-take information exchanges. Applicant control starts by using the first call to ask if the person would be open to talk about a possible career opportunity. Use the subsequent phone screen and follow-up interviews to look for voids and gaps in the candidate’s background. This provides you the insight needed to position your job as something worth pursuing. If it is, the candidate will begin to sell you, attempting to prove she’s competent. This is applicant control. You lose this tremendous advantage once you start selling. You’ll need to attend one of our recruiter training programs to understand how to establish and maintain applicant control regardless of the situation, but these articles will get you started.

2. Sell the Next Step, Not the Job.
Don’t start your initial discussion with a complete description of the job and why it’s wonderful. This is an unsophisticated sales tactics. As a result, most top candidates will say they’re not interested. Instead, ask the candidate if she’d be interested in talking a few minutes about a possible career opportunity. Be vague about the title and get the candidate to describe a little of her background. Withholding information is a good way to maintain applicant control and keep the process moving along. Next, after giving the candidate a 30-second impactful overview of the job, ask her if she’d be interested in a more detailed 30-minute discussion. If this conversation goes well, suggest an interview with the hiring manager to learn even more about the job and the team. Keep the process moving along this way, getting concessions at each step with an offer to provide more information to address any concerns the candidate might have. You’ll increase your end-to-end placement rate (# of people initially contacted to make one placement) by 50-100% by parsing out critical nuggets of information rather than providing it all at once. (Specific “how to” details are covered in Recruiter Boot Camp.)

3. Define the Job, Not the Person.
Traditional job descriptions that emphasize skills, experiences, background, and academics are not job descriptions, they’re people descriptions. A job description describes in some detail exactly what a person will be doing, not the skills a person needs to have. We call this type of job description a performance profile. It lists the primary 6-8 performance objectives the person is expected to achieve during the first year. Clarifying expectations upfront has been shown to increase on-the-job performance and reduce turnover. “Job shock” is a common problem when a person discovers that the work required to be performed is not the work described or promised. It’s caused by not defining the performance expectations upfront, assuming everyone knows them.

4. Don’t Use Wal-Mart Advertising to Attract Tiffany Customers.
Boring advertising only attracts average candidates. The best candidates with multiple opportunities won’t apply to a job that leads off with a list of skills, some pie-in-the-sky overview of your glorious company, or a req number. Instead, have a unique title and describe some of the important projects the candidate would be focusing on. Rather than a long list of skills and “must-haves,” describe how these skills will be used on the job. For example, “Use your BSME and advanced powertrain design skills to lead the development of our new 100mpg electric car,” instead of “Must have a BSME and 5-10 years transmission and powertrain experience.” (Send in a creative ad to enter our 2008 Outrageous Ad Writing Content. Here are the rules and some background information.)

5. Be Found.
Ads must be found using Google or a job board aggregator like SimplyHired. This requires some search engine optimization and reverse engineering to get to the top of the job listing. If your ad isn’t found, it won’t really matter how compelling it is. Reverse engineering is the process of finding your ad using terms a typical candidate would input on either Google or SimplyHired (e.g., jobs software sales Chicago). Even better, if you combine all similar jobs in a talent hub, you’ll be more easily found, you’ll reduce your advertising expenses, and you’ll attract more top performers. (Attend our Sourcing Summits for more on how to use search engine marketing to optimize your recruitment advertising and how to use talent hubs.)

6. Follow the 80/20 Rule when Recruiting Passive Candidates.
Referred and pre-qualified candidates are 25 TIMES MORE VALUABLE than a name or resume you found using some clever Boolean search string. First, consider that the callback rate of a referred person is at least 2-3 times greater than a cold call. Second, recognize that the likelihood that a cold-called candidate is qualified, appropriate, and interested in your job is at best a one-in-ten shot. The secret for success in recruiting passive candidates is to spend 80% of your time calling pre-qualified people who have been referred to you by another strong person. If you spend more than 20% of your time cold calling, you’re wasting it. By calling pre-qualified referred candidates, you only have to make 10 or so calls to get 2-3 sendouts vs. 50 or more cold calls. Of course, for this process to work you’ll need to obtain 2-3 great referrals on every call you make. (You’ll want to attend our Advanced Sourcing and Recruiting course to master this critical skill. In the interim here are some articles on how to improve your networking efforts right away.)

7. Measure 1st Impression at the End of the Interview.
More hiring mistakes take place in the first 30 minutes of the interview than at any other time. This is a result of overvaluing your first impression, which is often made in 5 minutes or less. People who make good first impressions tend to be asked easier questions, with the interviewer looking for facts to prove the candidate is qualified. People with weaker first impressions are initially assumed to be incompetent or a bad fit, with the interviewer asking tougher questions looking for facts to prove the candidate is not qualified. It’s always best to wait 30 minutes before making any yes/no assessments, using this time to collect objective evidence. Then at the 30-minute mark, or later, ask yourself if the candidate’s first impression will help or hinder on-the-job performance. When first impression is assessed this way, you’ll discover that many people with a great first impression aren’t top performers, and many of those who initially appeared somewhat weak, were really just a bit nervous. (Here are some other ideas on how to reduce the impact of first impressions on assessment accuracy.)

8. Use the One-Question Performance-based Interview to Recruit and Close.
Here’s a kick in the head: the primary purpose of the interview is to look for voids and gaps in the candidate’s background, and you can do it with just one question! Done properly, not only will you more accurately assess competency, but you’ll also create interest on the part of the candidate if she sees your job opening as a stretch move. This will help reduce compensation needs, minimize the risk of a counter-offer, and allow you to maintain applicant control. (Read this article for the quick version on how to do this.) A big plus: you’ll have all of the evidence you’ll need to overwhelm a hiring manager who thinks your candidate doesn’t have the right stuff. (To become a top recruiter you’ll need to send your hiring managers to our special training course just for them.)

9. No 2s!
Our 10-Factor Candidate Assessment Scorecard guides the interviewer through ten great predictors of on-the-job performance using a 1-5 ranking system. A Level 2 is someone who is competent to do the work, but not motivated. If you go out of your way to not hire Level 2s you’ll only be hiring people who are both competent and motivated to do the work required. “No 2s” is the best kept secret for not hiring underperformers. To pull this off you need to prepare a performance profile and look for examples of where the candidate has a proven track record of doing this work well and if she is still motivated to do so. If you’re going to use behavioral interviewing, make sure the example chosen to demonstrate motivation is comparable to real job needs.

10. No No’s!
When a candidate says “Not interested” when first contacted, it’s usually caused by a lack of information, the recruiter over-selling the job, or lack of time. Overcoming these problems is pretty easy – don’t pay attention, and diplomatically persist. Alternatively, never ask a question that can be answered by “Not interested” or “No.” This is a part of the applicant control Rule 1 described above. If you somehow got a “No,” you can still recover by suggesting to the candidate that maybe you rushed things a bit, and then rephrase your opening remarks to something like this: “Would it make sense to talk 5-10 minutes on the chance the job I’m handling represents a significant career move?” Don’t be surprised if at least 75% say yes. You’ll need to become a Certified Performance-based Hiring recruiter to master this.

11. Get 100% Acceptance Before Making Any Offer.
You should never make an offer formal until the candidate has told you with 100% certainty that she’ll accept it on the spot. When candidates tell you they have to think about it, or accept it and later renege, it’s generally due to an unsophisticated, rush-to-close process behind it all. While you want candidates to think about every term and condition in an offer, it’s best to do this before you finalize it. You do this by testing every aspect of the offer before making it formal. For example, start the testing process by asking the candidate if she wants to be on the short list. Then ask how this job compares to others she’s considering. Test the comp range, benefits, and other aspects of the offer the same way. The form of this test goes something like, “If we could offer you this, do you want to be considered a finalist?” If you gain approval, test the start date by asking when she could start if the offer was finalized in the next few days. Then, before you make the offer final, ask if she’ll sign it within 24 hours and stop considering other opportunities. If the answer is no, don’t make the offer. Of course, if you want to know what to do if the candidate says no anywhere along the way, you’ll need to attend Recruiter Boot Camp Online. Here are some articles on negotiating offers to get you started.

12. Move Slowly, as Fast as Possible.
Top performers need to time to evaluate any new job, primarily to consider the strategic impact of the move in comparison to the tactical issues. For example, top people might be willing to give up compensation for a faster growth path, but this won’t be done instantly. It takes at least a day or two to ponder these trade-offs. While the recruiter needs to push the process along, you risk losing the deal if you push too hard. If you maintain applicant control, create a sense of urgency, and add in some competition, you can accelerate the decision making, but be careful not to break the space-time continuum. Using a solution selling process is the key to uncovering needs, addressing concerns, comparing options, and closing the deal. Our recruiter training programs have embedded this concept into every step. Here’s an article that highlights how to pull this off.

Recruiting the best is a science, not an art. It can be a logical, commonsense business process that can be learned, applied, and scaled throughout a company. You’ll be half-way there if you follow these 12 rules from now on, on every search. You’ll be 100% there if you get everyone else in your company to follow them, too.

Source : http://www.adlerconcepts.com/
©2008 The Adler Group, All Right Reserved

How to face Layoffs ?

Question : My company is planning to reduce the staff ? I am not sure whether my name figures in the list of employees who will be asked to let go ! How to face a situation when i am asked to leave ?

Raghav :
This is becoming a pretty common scenario these days in many companies that are not able to sustain their business in view of the overall economic slow down.

My advise is to not wait till the obvious happens, start your trails today why wait till the last minute ? The following article will help you to face with this kind of situation.

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9 Tips for Taking Control of Your IT Career in the Face of Layoffs

With unemployment rates at their highest level in six years and layoffs planned at some of the biggest companies, tech workers are feeling anxious about their jobs and powerless in the face of economic uncertainty. Two IT staffing experts offer some empowering advice for all IT workers.

Leave a comment (2)

By Thomas Wailgum

September 22, 2008 — CIO —

If you work in IT at a financial services company—or any organization reeling from the country's economic woes—you're probably feeling insecure about your job not—not to mention powerless over market forces beyond your control.
MORE ON CIO.com
Financial Industry Mergers, Acquisitions and Meltdowns: What's in Store for IT Execs and Staffers?
Credit Suisse CIO Jumps Ship to Merrill Lynch Amid Industry Turmoil
Wall Street Financial Crisis to Lead to Layoffs in IT
10 Secrets for Searching for a Job During a Recession

Management consulting firm Janco Associates reported on Sept. 15 that the financial industry turmoil, along with HP's announcement that it would lay off 24,600 employees over three years, would "glut" the IT job market. (For more on the recent fallout, see "Financial Industry Mergers, Acquisitions and Meltdowns: What's in Store for IT Execs and Staffers?")

But, in fact, there's quite a bit you can do right now to quell your anxieties and take control of your career.

John Estes, a vice president at staffing firm Robert Half International, and John Baschab, a senior vice president at Technisource, a staffing and IT managed services provider, offer these nine tips for those IT workers who are concerned about losing their jobs due to the economic turmoil on Wall Street and across the U.S. economy.

1. Ask the Right Questions. If you are concerned about layoffs or the effect of a potential merger, Estes advises that IT workers ask their managers some key questions: How will this affect my job? Are there other opportunities within the company that I could apply for? If I am laid off, will the company offer outplacement services or some type of severance pay?

2. Remember: You've Got Skills. Financial services IT people happen to have the most in-demand skillsets right now, especially security and compliance, notes Baschab. "This, combined with a blue-chip name on the resume, should ease the job search," he adds. (For more on this topic, see "30 Skills Every IT Person Needs.")

3. Dust Off Your Resume. It's always a good idea to be prepared with an updated resume, Estes notes. "You never know when an opportunity may present itself, or when an unexpected change may occur in your organization," he says. "The early bird gets the worm, so the sooner you get your resume posted, the better your odds of beating out your competition." (For more on this see "Your Resume Is Mission Critical.")

4. Tap into Your Network. Estes advises IT people to write a list of everyone they know who may be in a position to help them uncover a new job opportunity. And consider everybody: family, friends, business associates, clients or vendors, alumni groups, professional or social networking groups, and church or community members. "Your contacts can be an invaluable source of job leads," he adds, "so don't leave any stone unturned." (If you're a little reluctant to network, read "How to Network: 12 Tips for Shy People.")

5. Meet with an IT Recruiter. A recruiter who specializes in information technology "not only can help you find a job—he or she also can provide useful feedback on your resume and how you present yourself in an interview," Estes says.

6. Think Outside Your Industry. Baschab says that operations and infrastructure (O&I) experience is portable to nearly any industry—for instance, e-mail servers are pretty much the same everywhere. "This means that people with O&I experience can conduct the broadest possible job search," he says.

7. Don't Overlook Smaller Companies with Bigger Opportunities. Now might be a good time to take a chance on a more senior position at a smaller company, Baschab says, such as a regional or local retail bank. It could be a "good opportunity to help them build an IT department using the skills learned in a large enterprise environment," he adds.

8. Broaden Your Functional Skills. "Applications and business analysts can also often make a lateral move into the finance and accounting area, thus broadening their job search to other functional areas within a company," Baschab notes.

9. Maybe It's Time to Move. "If you feel your opportunities truly are limited in your local market, ask yourself if a move to another city or state is a viable option," Estes says. "All factors considered, it could pan out to be a welcome change."

Baschab points out that finance industry IT salaries have historically been higher than IT salaries in other industries; but they also come with a higher cost of living. "This could be just the right opportunity to make a move to a different geography," he adds, "and take a somewhat lower salary but also a considerably lower cost of living."

Other stories by Thomas Wailgum
© 2008 CXO Media Inc.

Future of HR ?

Following are the few queries regarding the same: 

1) Is it a good option considering following factors:  

a) Job scenarios afterwards .. when we have sufficient MBA HRs in the market  

Raghav - there is always a shortage of high caliber HR professionals in any market conditions good or bad !  

b) Probable salary and work load 

Raghav - Salary will surely go up and work load is again going to increase a lot.  

2) How different is it from MBA HR in terms of job profile ? 

Raghav - MBA HR gives you sound fundamental knowledge on HRM which will help in application. 

3) Does an MBA HR holds an edge over M.S HR in anyways ? 

Raghav - I think MS in HR is a better option than the plain vanilla MBA HR from India.

Question asked in Linkedin by a member to Raghav cross posted.

Sowmya 

sowmya@hrinindia.in 

www.hrinindia.in  

HRI Foundation 

303 Motherland Apartments 

3rd Main 3rd Cross 

Kamanahalli 

BANGALORE 560086

Also read our other blogs :

www.hrinindia.blogspot.com

www.hrudaya1.blogspot.com

What is the ratio of HR team to Employees ?

Q: How valid is the 1-to-100 ratio of HR staffing?

- Keeping Up With Changing Times, HR manager, services, Raleigh, North Carolina


A: The ratio of human resource person for every 100 employees has been around
for at least 20 years and is still cited as being HR gospel. But a lot has
changed in 20 years, not the least of which is automation of much of the
traditional HR functions.

For example, staffing has always been one of the most labor-intensive HR
functions-placing ads, poring over paper resume submissions, calling to set up
interviews, sending paper interview responses and offer letters, administering
pre-employment tests, etc. Today, a good applicant tracking system can easily
replace a majority of traditional staffing function positions. Rather than
taking hours to place newspaper advertisements, an applicant tracking system
(ATS) can post jobs to multiple online job boards in a matter of minutes. Resume
submissions can be automatically screened, chosen applicants can be contacted
immediately by e-mail, interviews scheduled with multiple managers quickly
online, pre-employment tests done by the applicants at their own computers, and
onboarding packages compiled and delivered within minutes electronically. One
recruiter with an ATS and a computer can easily do the work it took four people
to do 20 years ago.

Automation of HR functions in other areas produces similar productivity
increases. Compensation and benefits functions have certainly benefited from
advances in HR systems. Performance management has been automated with software
that allows organizations to assign, manage and report on each employee's
business objectives and results with much more limited HR involvement than 20
years ago. For better or worse, it's no longer necessary to have HR employee
interaction with line managers for the 90 percent or so of traditional HR
activities that are transactional in nature. Managers don't need to come to HR
to review most of an employee's file-most of it is accessible online through
intranets or internal computer systems. Pay increases can be proposed, approved
and implemented automatically. A supervisor who is overdue on employee reviews
is sent a computer-generated reminder. Training programs are delivered to
employees at their convenience via computer and
testing is done online.

As axiomatic as "one for every 100" may once have been, today it could easily be
"one for every 300" or 400 or even 500 or more given today's automation
opportunities. And by automating these functions, HR is freed to focus more on
consultative and development activities and produce more with fewer resources.


[Source: Carl Norcross holds a master's degree in human resources and has more
than 20 years' experience leading HR departments. He has worked for several
midsize and Fortune 500 firms, including GRID Systems, Colorado Memory Systems
and Nortel Networks.]

How to assess critical thinking of a candidate ?

What Steps Can Help Us Determine an Applicant's Ability to Think Critically?

Q: As a CPA firm, we find that many of the accountants we hire are fine for
routine compliance issues. However, many seem to lack good analytical skills.
They are unable to project or think beyond the basic answers. It's easy enough
to test for and teach basic skills. Good analytical skills can't be taught. How
do we test or look for that ability in applicants?

- At a Loss, office manager, services, Plantation, Florida


A: You're right: Soft skills are very hard to teach. People either have the
capacity or they don't. Although they can be developed with coaching, it is
always more effective to hire someone with the right skills for the job. To do
this, it is important to include a personal skills assessment in the selection
process. A validated assessment that measures soft skills often leads to results
that indicate the level of analytical problem-solving.

Or you could simply incorporate very detailed interview questions that truly
reveal whether an applicant has the analytical skills you are looking for.

Interview questions to assist in identifying analytical skills include:

a) Describe a situation when you anticipated a problem. What, if anything, did
you do about it?

b) Give an example of when your diagnosis of a problem proved to be correct.
What approach did you take to diagnose the problem? What was the outcome?

c) Describe the most difficult work problem you've ever encountered. What made
it difficult? What solution was implemented and how successful was it in solving
the problem?

d) What steps do you take toward developing a solution?

e) What factors did you consider in evaluating solutions?

Including an assessment in the selection process will determine whether the
candidate has the analytical skills needed, but what about other qualities that
you have not pinpointed? To make the hiring process even more effective,
consider benchmarking the job to truly understand other skills, behaviors and
motivators needed for superior performance-and then assess candidates to see how
they compare.

Currently, my preliminary research on personal assessments indicates that people
with analytical problem-solving skills are somewhat unique. They usually also
have a passion, or motivation, for knowledge and the skill of continuous
learning. Often, they also are described as suspicious, incisive, critical,
exacting, organized and of high standards.


[Source: Bill Bonnstetter, Target Training International Ltd., Scottsdale,
Arizona, August 1, 2008]

How Do you Welcome a New Employee ?

Question :


what could be the most novel way of welcoming a new employee in to a new organization...





Answer :


Raghav -


Many companies send out a mail introducing the new joinee (preferably with snap)A welcome lunch with the team members will go long way in breaking the ice and getting familiar with the team in an informal way.Clearly defined reporting structure and the positions indicated in the Org chart will also help the new joinee and will serve as a guide to settle quickly and understand the nuances.


Thanks


Raghav
Startegic HR Advisor
Bangalore India
9880080321
--------------
Zo Hualongo -
End of the day, it is not cosmetic HR such as gifts, games in the office etc. which matter, but the work environment, quality of work, quality of interactions with others etc.
Regards
Zo
Head HR - Airbus Industrie Bangalore
--------------
Many Organisations have a week long orientation proagramme, depending on the size of the Organization and nature of work involved.New Joinees are also given "welcome Kit" which usually contains Employees ID ,Credit card for the salaray Account ,Sim card to the Official Mobile Pnone Number a Organization customised T shirt/Cap etc.Recently some organizations have started including " Self Defense Pepper Sprays" as a part of the "welcome Kit" for the women employees.Contact me incase u want to give pepper sprays to your new joinees.:)
Cheers
Rana
CxO AAX Global
--------------
Manoj Sethu - Ops Head
To be honest... I think some companies go overboard trying to make people feel at home. Ultimately it is not the material things that help people feel at home and stay. I know companies that have 70% IT workforce still there after many years. The secret is simple.... keep it simple, transparent, draw borders and give them freedom.
The work environment and bosses go a long way in retaining employees than any gifts or material things stuffed onto them. Most material things have shelf life, memory of a good time in life (or work) stays all life. In our enthusiasm to show off and shower employees with goodies, we forget that they are humans, we think they are some machines, input data (goodies) and they deliver output. So I don't buy that idea.

I have worked in such environments, have got goodies (especially me being a good performer as per past records) but end of the day what matters is "how I feel about myself in the company", not about "how the company is".That's why my negative vibe for materialistic luring to retain an employee. I never cared if i got gifts or not, what mattered to me most is whether I am considered as a person important in the company's / department's processes /overall scheme of things and how serious am I being taken.

If that is met, have a nice team to enjoy work with with a decent remuneration in line with market trend, there's nothing more to look at.Unfortunately, u dont get all things in a single package, that's the reason I considered being part of a start-up and designed a team that suited common interests and goals. So far so good! :)

What is SLA for RPO

Question :
What is the SLA (Service Level Agreement) for RPO ( recruitment process outsourcing ) ? What are the precautions and guidelines for framing a SLA

Answer :
Shrinking workforce, work-visa caps, recent expansion of economy coupled with general frustration with the results and costs associated with traditional recruiting models on the part HR leadership prompted demand for innovative ideas when it comes to talent acquisition and retention. Attracting and retaining talent is undoubtedly one of the top items on any executive’s priority list. One the most talked-about answers to this challenge is Recruiting Process Outsourcing (RPO). It has become one of the hottest buzz words and fastest growing areas of Human Resource Outsourcing (HRO), with HRO in turn representing as a sub-set of outsourcing initiatives within the broader Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry.
In a recent corporate buyer survey, close to 75% of respondents indicated that they have either recently engaged a talent acquisition provider or are actively involved in sourcing. This tremendous acceptance rate is clearly indicative of the next phase in RPO maturity. While there is still lack of commonly-shared definitions and standards, most decision-makers no longer need to be sold on the benefits of outsourcing the recruitment function as a concept. Despite some differences with traditional transaction-focused outsourcing models, recruiting outsourcing has been gaining ground not only in executive board rooms but also in the minds of hiring managers as a way to let their organizations concentrate on expanding the core competencies while outsourcing such resource-intensive and often difficult tasks as finding and retaining the right people.
Nowadays, some of the key challenges are in selecting the right vendor to partner with amongst a sea of companies claiming to be RPO providers as well as in coming up with common definitions for RPO and figuring out the standards and expectations. How do you navigate the RPO field full of providers claiming to be the most efficient, cost-effective and reliable partner?
Reviewing a potential vendor holistically is crucial. You have to look at their delivery capabilities, scalability, experience with requirements similar to yours, cultural fit and check references. Luckily some of the methods and lessons can be derived from other, slightly more mature BPO disciplines. As with any other outsourcing engagements, a successful RPO initiative is characterized by clear rules of engagement and consistent quantitative assessment of objectives and delivered results. Although most of the companies realize that need, often RPO engagements fail to establish a well-defined Service Level Agreements (SLA’s).
If you want to succeed in implementing an RPO, you must define Key Performance Indicators (KPI) in accordance to the scope of services being outsourced, establish a Service Level Agreement that would spell out the expected results for each KPI, and then monitor execution of the SLA on a frequent basis.
While the classic definition of Recruitment Process Outsourcing implies transferring the entire talent acquisition and retention function to an outside provider, some organizations choose to only outsource a sub-set of recruiting processes. Each company defines what a successful RPO engagement is based upon their unique needs. However, some common metrics such as “time-to–hire”, “cost per hire”, “Recruiting Cost as % of Revenue” are used across the board. Although all of these measurements are examples of KPI’s applied to track the HR function, they can not always be directly used to measure the success of PRO initiatives. A company entering in an RPO engagement should have clear objectives that are in line with the degree of control that company is willing to release to an outside party.
Applying the “end-goal” per-placement/per-hire KPI’s is absolutely fair when a provider has full control over the entire lifecycle, but other, more granular indicators should be used when you engage a RPO shop for something like phone screening prospective candidates or data cleansing. Let’s review some examples of applying appropriate metrics to track RPO progress depending on the degree of control given to an outside vendor. As an example, Workforce Source acts as full-function recruiting department for a rapidly growing DC-based provider of electronic prescribing services designed to meet the needs of the physicians. “Time-to-hire”, “Cost per Hire” indicators are being used along with other KPI’s to see how Workforce Source stacks up against the other recruiting options: internal and contingency staffing agencies.
However, Workforce Source often gets engaged by organizations seeking help in sourcing and phone-screening candidates either for major staff expansion initiatives or for more tactical reasons. Once a candidate has been qualified as a fit by a WFS recruiter, he or she gets submitted to the client’s internal recruiter, and that recruiter is responsible for taking the candidate through all the remaining phases of the recruitment lifecycle (hiring manager interviews, reference background checks, offer negotiation, acceptance and on-boarding). Is reasonable to apply the “time-to-hire” and other end-goal measurements access the RPO provider’s performance? The answer is not really. Since the RPO provider in this case has no control over the entire lifecycle, a better set of indicators of their performance would be “Time-to-Qualified submission”, “Cost per Qualified Submission”, “Number of Qualified Submission per a Period of Time”. Internal recruiters definitely play a key role in providing prompt and objective feedback on all presented candidates, and are expected to render an objective judgment in such subjective area as candidate qualification assessment. It’s definitely a challenge. Therefore, it’s extremely important to define specific assessment criteria and allowable deviations, such as experience, education, pay range, location/relocation requirement, citizenship limited, etc. It’s also important to measure internal recruiter’s buy-in and performance by introducing another KPI – “Time-to-Feedback”, which is usually the average amount of time elapsed between the time of candidate submission by the RPO vendor and fully-completed feedback submission returned to the vendore by the internal assessor.
Obviously, an experienced recruiter instinctively uses most of the above-described criteria anyway; however including them all explicitly in well formulated Service Level Agreement will help avoid unpleasant surprises and negative perceptions on both sides In recent years, SLA’s have become the standard in most of the IT outsourcing engagements. However, HRO still lags behind when it comes to putting firm service level expectations in place. Oftentimes, it seems the HR managers are more focused on the immediate cost savings and run a risk of a wrong sourcing selection by going after a vendor who can offer the cheapest rate for a full-time equivalent basis. While trying to reduce costs, the buyers actually often overpay even compared to all the payroll and infrastructure overheads associated with the in-house option. SLA’s are meant to capture and summarize productivity and performance expectations, escalation and response procedures, communications and negotiation process which leads to openness, understanding between customer and RPO provider and effectively used to constantly monitor the overall success.
RPO Service level agreements are very simple in concept: they are agreements between an outsourcer and customer on numbers and often on the quality of the people to be hired. They are developed before the RPO engagement starts and may also contain incentives for the provider. They are almost always negotiated, rather than simply imposed by either party.
For example, an SLA might say that the RPO provider will present 15 pre-screened candidates matching client’s open job orders per week for each full-timer recruiter assigned to the account, or that standard turnaround time should not exceed 48 hours from the time of receiving a completed job requisition. It is important to understand that an SLA is a two-way agreement, and the client certainly carries some responsibilities as well. As an example, the assigned recruiter or hiring manager might be required to provide feedback in a particular format and within a certain timeframe. While the SLA’s are meant to be very quantitative documents, they need to be flexible enough to allow for a certain degree of adjustment given that each assessor is characterized by his or her own personal style and standards.
SLA's guide the planning and sourcing efforts and help HR leaders establish processes to create robust talent agency. By knowing where growth will occur and what types of people organization is looking for, RPO provider can focus sourcing efforts and competitive intelligence activities to get the optimal results. For example, one client collected and analyzed the SLA’s from across the company and saw a clear trend toward hiring more SAP functional analysts. In partnership with a training outsourcer, they proposed instituting an intensive training program for their current business analysts who were familiar with legacy systems. This was highly successful and lead to a reduction in recruiting costs, as well as helped avoid some planned layoffs. Only a handful of SAP analysts needed to be recruited from outside.
SLA’s outline customer satisfaction. If the agreements are properly negotiated, they, in effect, contain the ingredients of satisfaction. RPO provider and HR manager who have decided what success and quality look like will most likely find that they can quickly determine if things have worked well or not and where improvements need to happen.
SLA’s can be used as a way to compensate and manage RPO Providers. When a portion of RPO provider’s compensation is based on meeting the goals of the SLA, the day-to-day management of RPO provider becomes one of coaching them to success rather than that of monitoring activity. RPO providers will do the best they can to excel to maximize their margins. This approach ensures that providers focus on delivering results that clients see as the priority in their business.
An SLA typically contains multiple sections or sub-documents designed to fully describe the entire PRO engagement via a set measurable objectives and goals. Below is a list of sections comprising a typical RPO SLA’s:
Objectives and needs assessment
Scope Statement
Pricing and Cost Estimates
Organization Chart
KPI’s, measurements and metrics
Work schedules and communication
Response and Escalation Procedures
The Objectives section is really meant to be a roadmap for the engagement. It is very helpful when it comes to discussing Provider scalability.
The Scope Statement outlines the general areas of responsibility granted to the provider. It also typically spells out methods and sources to be used, sourcing and screening processes and candidate submission procedures.
The Pricing and Cost Estimates related the cost or services to the cost per KPI. Depending on the scope of work, this could be either cost per resume, cost per qualified submission, or cost per hire.
The Organization Chart shows the key players on each side, with their respective responsibilities and roles clearly defined and assigned.
The sections on KPI’s, measurements and metrics contain non-monetary performance measurements, such as the expected volume of submissions from a single resource per a period of time, and turnaround times on both ends. It also establishes the frequency and protocol for on-going performance monitoring.
The Work Schedules section describes expected hours of operation and cross-team communication procedures. The Response and Escalation section is a logical extension of the communication plan. Its objective is to establish a process for issue.
Given that the RPO market is getting saturated with providers whose claims can not be validated immediately, time spent in ascertaining, negotiating and monitoring is a solution is definitely time well-spent. If not done correctly, an outsourcing solution can not only be a costly proposition, but more importantly, can lead a lot of missed opportunities to acquire key human resources. “War for Talent” is definitely on and no organization can afford not to have a battle plan.
By Stan Anapol (sanapol@workforcesource.com)

What is Leadership ?

Often times we tend to believe that leadership is meant only for those who occupy the top position in a hierarchy. Is this true ?
Can every one be a leader ?
Is leadership applicable for top management ?

Please go through the article to find answers for the questions on Leadership
------
The biggest myth about leadership is that only people in formal positions, at the top of hierarchies should be called leaders. In fact, many thousands of people at lower levels in great companies provide leadership in their jobs, on task forces, initiating new ideas. The second biggest myth is that only an elite few have the potential to provide leadership .
True, very few of us will ever be leaders remotely like Mahathma Gandhi. But many of us can provide needed leadership in a modest, but important, way. One only has to look at team sports among schoolchildren. Do the math. Add up all the schools and all the team sports and estimate how many young people play some leadership role in the games. The number is staggering.
Imagine what would be the impact on this rapidly changing world if we all believed that leadership is more about a decision and less about birth, pedigree, or education? I think the impact would be huge. Every person and every employee would rise to a leadership role. If we believed, we would make it happen. When we do not believe, we do not look for leadership potential among the masses. We do not nurture that potential. We give only a few the opportunity and encouragement to try to lead.
India is far more important to the world than is generally acknowledged . As the world’s largest democracy, and the world’s second largest nation, India is enormously important to both the world economy and to all people who seek freedom from tyranny.
At the same time, without enough leadership to create and build organisations, an economy like India can’t keep producing enough jobs to make it function well and to keep a democracy stable. Leadership is not the only necessity for progress, but without enough, scarce resources are not sufficiently leveraged, economic growth cannot be sustained over long periods of time, and democratic institutions remain fragile - always vulnerable to tyranny and corruption.
With a possibility of leadership coming from hundreds of thousands of people, leadership coming from millions, in such a huge nation as India, will help start thousands of companies, grow thousands of existing companies, create millions of jobs, and build vibrant 21st century government organisations.
Under these circumstances, why shouldn’t the GDP grow at double digits year after year? Again, do the math. Doubledigit growth over the next 20 years would create an Indian economy of what size? An average income of what size? Wealth how much larger than today? The numbers are amazing . Definitely the time has arrived for every Indian to get on to a leaders hip role.
Source: ET

How to give Feedback ??

In Joseph’s Heller’s epochal book, Catch -22, we have a character named Orr, who finds two crab apples somewhere. He walks with them in his cheeks until Yossarian, the main character in the novel, spies them there and makes him take them out. Then, Orr finds two horse chestnuts and slips those in until Yossarian detects them and orders him to take crab apples out of his mouth again. Orr grins, replies as he pulls them out that they are not crab apples but horse chestnuts and that they are not in his mouth anymore but in his hands.

Though this is a fictitious anecdote, most people are familiar with the circular path that criticism follows. Praise in public, criticize in private, was the advice given by Dale Carnegie. It is a very good dictum. The question is that while managers like to give positive feedback, most people are afraid to give negative feedback, even in private. Nobody, it appears, likes giving negative feedback just like no one likes receiving it. The reason is simple: negative feedback leads to retaliation in some way or the other. Orr was sophisticated, but others may not be.

It is a tough choice either way. Remaining silent perpetuates mistakes. Confronting needs courage. So, what should one do?
While criticizing in private is good advice, more needs to be said. It is not only “what” is criticized that is important but also “how” the criticism is done that makes a difference. Based on all the wisdom I have garnered from various sources over the years, I would like to share a few tips:

Criticize the behavior and not the person. Any criticism that affects the self worth of an individual is likely to be rejected without examination. Do not use words like you “never” do this or you “always” make mistakes.

While criticizing, ensure that it is “direct, appropriate and relevant”. Emotion in the tone of the voice can override the sanity of the words used.

Be future-focused. Drawing attention to the past only makes the mistake even more difficult to face up to. Ask the person what are the two things the he or she would like to do moving forward. This focuses the mind on “change”, not “helplessness”.

Use the opportunity to coach – people are more ready to change after an error. But do not do it when the wounds are too raw.

Do not make criticism a habit. Also catch people doing right. It is important to be seen as fair for the criticism to be received well.

Most important, do not postpone confrontation. Do it before it becomes impossible to do. As PG Wodehouse keeps saying, “He who hesitates is lost.”

Author - Ranjan Acharya, Hindustan Times

Does business women need to be more superior than men ?

Matching their pace with men doesn't seem to satisfy women, at least not in the realm of business. A new survey has revealed that women think they have to be superior than men in order to succeed in business.

The survey, named YouGov, which conducted a poll of 1,000 female entrepreneurs, has underlined the fact that women need to be better than men in order to succeed in business.

It was revealed that 74 per cent female entrepreneurs claimed that it was not enough for women to be as good as their male counterparts - in fact, they had to be one up.

Still, a growing number of the women admitted that this move has helped them in attaining a greater sense of confidence and self-worth.

One third of the women said that if they had got more encouragement from the Government, it would have certainly helped them while taking their first steps.

"There needs to be more help and support to help point women in the right direction and hold their hands as they start off setting up their business," The Telegraph quoted Harriet Harman, the minister for women and equality, as saying.

Joy Nichols, chief executive officer of Nichols Employment Agency, who started her business 25 years ago, said: "Men are cruising whereas women have to sprint. I look forward to the day when I can cruise."

YouGov findings were released to mark the launch of the Government-sponsored "Girls! Make Your Mark" awards, for female-run enterprises.

Source : ANI, London

What can we do with mobile phones ?

Dear Readers,

We know that we can talk chat take pictures and listen to fm radio on our mobiles. Can we imagine what all we can do with out mobile phones ? Think again !

The following things can be done through our mobile phones -

There are a few things that can be done in times of grave emergencies. Your mobile phone can actually be a life saver or an emergency tool for survival. Check out the things that you can do with it: -
((1))EMERGENCYThe Emergency Number worldwide for **Mobile** is112If you find yourself out of coverage area of your mobile network and there is an emergency, dial 112and the mobile will search any existing network to establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly this number 112can be dialled even if the keypad is locked.**Try it out.**

((2))Have you locked your keys in the car? Does you car have remote keys? This may come in handy someday. Good reason to own a cell phone:If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their cell phone from your cell phone. Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock. Saves someone fro having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other "remote" for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk).

((3))How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone? To check your Mobile phone's serial number, key in the following digits on your phone: * # 0 6 # A 15 digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe. when your phone get stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code. They will then be able to block your handset so even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally useless.You probably won't get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it can't use/sell it either.

((4)) Be careful while using your mobile phone When you try to call someone through mobile phone,don't put your mobile closer to your ears until the recipient answers. Because directly after dialling, the mobile phone would use it's maximum signalling power, which is: 2 watts = 33dbi, Plz Be Careful, Message as received (Save your brain) Please use left ear while using cell (mobile), because if you use the right one it will affect brain directly. This is a true fact from Apollo medical team.

Source : internet

How to recession proof your career ?

How to recession proof your career ?

Whether we're actually in a recession or not is the subject of debate.
What is certain is the rising unemployment rate. U.S. unemployment rose to 5% for the first time in two and a half years in December. That's likely a result of the fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis--and there's probably more to come.
Don't wait for the alarm bells to sound. Recession or just a temporary slowdown, there are things you can do to keep your job as safe as possible. "You have to be proactive," says Dale Winston, CEO of the executive recruiting firm Battalia Winston International.

The first step: Make yourself indispensable. Show up early and stay late. Now isn't the time to slack. If your boss needs someone to volunteer for a project, raise your hand to do it, then do it well. "Prove you're a contributor no matter what level you're operating at," she says.
If possible, take on projects for other divisions. It's hard to fire someone when they're valuable to several areas of the business. But be prepared to be stretched. Open jobs might go unfilled for long time periods and you will have to take on extra work. Don't start sleeping at the office, but don't complain about working extra hours for several managers.
Also, look for ways to save the company money," says Bill DeMario, chief operating officer of Ajilon Consulting, a staffing firm that specializes in accounting, finance, consulting and human resources management. That includes everything from telecommuting to a faraway meeting to gently encouraging colleagues not to print all 100 pages of a document unless they absolutely need them. (You can even make the reduced printing targets a competition between different departments so it seems less like a company mandate and more like a silly office game.)
Take a broader view, too. Be aware of your profession's and your company's financial well-being and act accordingly. In other words, people who work in industries that are clearly suffering, like print media, should ramp up their job search and consider ways they can use their skills in similar fields. Look for signs to determine how healthy your company is. Are they tightening the purse strings by limiting travel? Are they asking employees to bring their own lunches to previously catered staff meetings? These may seem like small things, but they can be indications of tight financial times.
If you notice those signs, do more than just work hard. Talk to people in your industry to find out which companies are thriving and make contact with employees there. Use your professional network to accomplish this.
On the bright side, if there is a recession, it likely won't be as severe as the last one. Back then there was a confluence of factors, including the dot-com bust and Sept. 11, 2001, that took a severe toll. Also, the demographics of the workforce are evolving. Large numbers of baby boomers are about to reach retirement age, and while they won't necessarily leave the workforce entirely, they will look to slow down or switch careers. That means there is opportunity for younger employees to fill those gaps.
In the immediate future, if there are widespread layoffs, younger generations will likely handle it differently than their older peers, says Mary Crane, a career consultant who specializes in bridging the generation gap. "They've come into the workplace never suspecting they'll take one job and have it for life," says Crane.
"Lots of them will look at it as an opportunity to explore career opportunities. They might take six months off-- that's how long recessions last--and work on a political campaign because they can build their resume and make great contacts. Or they'll teach. They look at this as opportunity."
We can all learn a lesson from that attitude.

Author : Tara Weiss

Source : Forbes.com

How to ask for salary hike ??

When the economy is in a downturn, employees hunker down and avoid drawing attention to themselves. Asking for a raise? Out of the question.

Not true. If your company is filing for bankruptcy, that's one thing. But work goes on and the best performers—especially the ones who bring on new clients and save their firm money—are justified in asking for a salary hike. The trick is showing your manager how much you're worth.
"The need to reward good employees doesn't change if the economy is in a recession or an upturn," says Doug Arms, chief talent officer for Ajilon Professional Staffing. "Companies make employee investments at different times, and some do it purposely during a recession so they're prepared to come out of it stronger. Employers need to consider what would happen if their best employees leave. The search process is painful since it's so hard to find a good match."

Like with any salary negotiation, find out what people in your market and your position are making. There are several ways to get that information. First, consult a recruiter that specializes in your industry. "Nobody has a better finger on the pulse than a recruiter," says Arms. "They know exactly what your competitors are paying."

You can also find this data on Web sites like PayScale.com. More than 10 million people were surveyed to build the salary database. To find out what you're worth, click on the "Evaluate salary for current job" option. Users must answer 20 questions related to their experience and job responsibilities to find out what others are getting paid.

Once you know your market value, request a conversation with your manager about salary. Don't threaten that you'll leave if you don't get a raise, and stay away from mentioning financial hardship. Instead, remind your manager of the strong contributions you've made. During an economic downturn, highlight new clients you've brought to the firm and cost-saving measures you've enacted. Include the key projects you've completed and goals you've met.

"Yes, your employer might be losing money because of a downturn," says Sherrie Campbell, a workplace expert from PayScale.com. "But if you can prove that you're vital to getting the company through the recession, then a raise is assured."
Next, present your manager with the research you collected on what others in your market are making. If you completed the PayScale salary survey, bring it with you. If you contacted recruiters, mention that. But you want to take a conversational tone instead of a confrontational one. Bring it up as if it's a discussion in which you're presenting research.

"Don't say, 'You're underpaying me,'" says Arms. "Say something like, 'Over the last year we had very specific targets in the organization that I had a vital role in assisting the company with. That, combined with the research I've done on current market conditions, makes me feel that my position here is worth the fair market value. I'd like to have a conversation to discuss my value to the organization.'"

Don't expect to get rejected but be prepared just in case. One route is to consider perks outside of salary. For instance, many people consider additional vacation time just as valuable as money. Other options include health benefits, reimbursement for commuting and professional training in a job-related skill. If you are denied the raise, tell your manager, 'I appreciate that finances are tough now. Can we discuss non-salary perks?'

Another way to deal with rejection is to ask what you can do in the next six months to make this conversation successful the next time. Ask the boss to be as specific as possible.
Says Campbell: "It lets the boss know you're serious and that you're willing to improve to get this raise."

Copyrighted, Forbes.com. All rights reserved.

How to catch a Liar

Question :
How to catch a liar.

Raghavs Answer :
Liars generally tend to tell as if they are telling the truth. The reason for telling a lie is to avoid the consequences of telling the truth. The behavior of liars is quite strange while some one have the guts and audacity to tell the lie looking into the eye others take a beaten route of telling a white by avoid looking into the listener.

Unless someonen is a professional liar, it is not always easy to pass of a lie. One way is to look at the facial expressions and probe there are greater chances of being caught off guard !.

Here is an interesting article i found on the web regarding the Art and Science of Lyeing.

Raghav
Founder HRinIndia

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Of all stinging invectives, being called a liar is near the top. Fact is, though, if bona fide lie detectors existed, we'd all be guilty as charged.

According to an oft-cited 1996 University of Virginia study led by psychologist Bella DePaulo, lying is part of the human condition. Over the course of one week, DePaulo and her colleagues asked 147 participants, aged 18 to 71, to record in a diary all of their social interactions and all of the lies they told during them. On average, each person lied just over 10 times, and only seven participants claimed to have been completely honest.
The truth, according to social psychologist Leonard Saxe, director of the Steinhardt Social Research Institute at Brandeis University, is that the right pressures or incentives will cause anybody to lie.

To be fair, most of the time we're just trying to be nice. (When your girlfriend asks if she looks good in her new dress, most guys--if they know what's good for them--say yes.) Indeed, according to DePaulo's study, such "false-positive" fibs are delivered 10 to 20 times more often than spurious denials of culpability.

Thankfully, too: "We lie less frequently to our significant others because we're more invested in those relationships," says Jeffrey Hancock, associate professor of communications at Cornell University.

For all the Elliot Spitzers, Jeffrey Skillings and Bill Clintons in the world, studies show that men and women lie with equal frequency. One difference, according to a 2002 University of Massachusetts study conducted by psychologist Robert Feldman: Women are more likely to lie to make other people feel good, while men tend to lie to make themselves look better.
How to catch liars in the act? Traditional polygraph tests, around in some form or fashion since the early 1900s, use sensors to detect fluctuations in blood pressure, pulse, respiration and sweat in response to probing questions. Two problems with polygraphs: First, they only work about 80% of the time, according to the American Polygraph Association. Second, it's not like we are going to carry all that hardware to a business meeting or a bar.
While there is no surefire on-the-spot way to sniff out dissemblers, there are some helpful clues and tactics for uncovering untruths.

Skilled liars don't break a sweat, but the rest of us get a little fidgety. Four possible giveaways: shifty eyes, higher vocal pitch, perspiration and heavier breathing. Of course, not everyone who doesn't meet your gaze is a liar.

"Certain behavioral traits, like averting eye contact, could be cultural and not indicative of a liar," says Joseph Buckley, president of John E. Reid & Associates, which has provided interview and interrogation training to more than 500,000 law enforcement agents to date. The company is also the creator of the Reid Technique, a nine-step interrogation process employed by many U.S. law enforcement agencies.

Another clue: imprecise pronouns. To psychologically distance themselves from a lie, people often pepper their tales with second- and third-person pronouns like "you," "we" and "they," says Hancock.

Liars are also more likely to ask that questions be repeated and begin responses with phrases like, "to tell you the truth," and "to be perfectly honest," says Reid.
When telling the truth, people often make hand gestures to the rhythm of their speech. Hands emphasize points or phrases--a natural and compelling technique when they actually believe the points they're making. The less certain will keep gesticulations in check, says Hancock.
Something about the phone seems to bring out the liar in us. In one week-long study of 30 college students, Hancock observed that the phone was the weapon of choice, enabling 37% of all the lies, versus 27% during face-to-face exchanges, 21% using Instant Messaging and just 14% via email. Little surprise, perhaps: Most phone calls don't leave a record behind.
Will we ever come clean? Not likely. The subjects in DePaulo's study confessed that they would tell 75% of the lies again if given the opportunity. Chances are, they'd get away with it.