1. Flex those hours. If there's one free reward that rises above the rest, it's flexible work schedules. Nearly every expert we contacted suggested flex time as a perk that offers the most gain with the least pain.

“Give a little latitude in determining work schedules and to take time for family or personal issues (such as doctor’s appointment and banking errands),” advised Richard Martin, president of Alcera Consulting Inc. “As long as the employee is deserving and doesn’t abuse the privilege, this can go a long way to building trusting and mature relationships with key workers.”

2. Send a handwritten note. Supervisors should ask top brass to write a personal note to employees who deserve recognition, advised Cindy Ventrice, author of "Make Their Day! Employee Recognition That Works." For example, AdvancedMD CEO Jim Pack handwrites his thank-you notes to employees on a $2 bill. “In three years of doing this, only one employee has asked if he could spend it,” said company spokesman John Pilmer.

3. Make work fun. “During a business coaching engagement, I found employee morale to be way down,” said Terri Levine, president of The Coaching Institute. “We created a weekly event to boost morale. One week we asked everyone to bring in a baby picture, post it on a wall, then pick which person matched each picture. Everyone was having fun and socializing while productivity went from 58 percent to 72 percent — all in the same week.”

4. Help them connect. Introducing employees to key suppliers, customers or someone in senior management can help make an employee's career, says Ventrice — and it won't cost you a thing.

5. Lose the shoes. Kaerie Ray, an account executive with the Echo Media Group public relations firm, said implementing a “no-shoes policy” can make employees feel right at home with each other, which translates into increased productivity. (But she suggests keeping the footwear handy in case clients come in.) “It's great to be in an office where employees are more concerned about doing quality work than what shoes or jewelry they have on,” she said. “We get so much done.”

6. Send them to the showers. (As in parties, not lathering and rinsing.) “Every birth and wedding deserves a shower,” said Ray. “Echo employees always leave early on shower days, and the food is on the house. No need to make up the time.”

7. Reward effort as well as success. Even if their ideas sometimes fail, you want employees to keep producing them, said Alan Weiss, president of the Summit Consulting Group Inc. “When I consulted with the CEO of Calgon, we created an annual award for 'the best idea that didn't work' and presented a loving cup at the annual awards dinner. This stimulated innovation and positive behavior, not 'winning.'”

8. Give them a free pass. Levine suggests giving out a certain number of free days off to employees to use as they see fit. “Employees get a few of these a year and can use them as they like,” she said. “They don't have to pretend to be sick. They can go to the beach, read a book, play with their kids ... it doesn't matter.”

9. Dole out cream and sugar. During the busiest times of the year, executives at the Cigna Group push coffee carts around the office, serving drinks and refreshments to their colleagues, noted Steve Harrison, author of "The Manager's Book of Decencies: How Small Gestures Build Great Companies." As they serve, executives coach and encourage colleagues and hear about real consumer issues.

10. Blow out the candles. Cisco Systems Inc.'s CEO John Chambers hosts a monthly hour-long birthday breakfast for any employee with a birthday that month, says Harrison. “Employees are invited to ask him anything. They feel recognized, and he gains loyal employees who share their ideas.”

11. Spread the love. Ask co-workers to write something they truly like or admire about an employee on a scrap of paper, then frame them along with a photograph of the employee, suggested David Russell, author of "Success With People – A Complete System for Effectively Managing People in Any Organization."

12. Offer a swap. Giving your best employees a chance to pick their own projects or trade tasks with a colleague empowers and rewards them at the same time, said Harrison.

13. Applaud their efforts — literally. If someone has done something really worthwhile, have your entire staff give them a standing ovation at the next meeting, suggested Sharlyn Lauby, president of HR consulting firm ITM Group Inc.

14. Say it with flowers. Professor Linda M. Lopeke, principal of SmartStartCoach.com, sayid she used to reward top employees by bringing in flowers from her garden and arranging them in a spectacular crystal vase on their desks. “Everybody knew what having the custody of the flowers meant,” she said. “Surprisingly, even the men competed fiercely for custody of the flowers.” In the winter, she'd substitute a showpiece display of floating glass fish.

15. Walk it as you talk it. The City of Dallas sponsored a walkathon where employees set goals for walking a certain number of steps each day, offering a free gym membership to those who walked the farthest. Not only did they get more fit, they turned their daily walks into traveling staff meetings, says city spokeswoman Danielle McCelland.

“Group members were able to update one another on projects, solicit team input and improve their fitness,” she said. “The organized program ended after three weeks, but the work group still holds their traveling staff meetings two months later.”

16. Pass the bucks. Handing out monopoly money that can be redeemed for gifts and other goodies may not be strictly free, but it pays off handsomely in the long run. For example, associates at BankAtlantic can pass out “WOW! Bucks” to colleagues who've done something outstanding, said bank vice president Gregory Dalmotte. The bucks can eventually be traded in for real goods. “There's a clear correlation that words of encouragement have created associates who perform at a higher level,” he says.

17. Share the memories. “My team created a scrapbook chronicling the impact I'd had on their company and gave it to me on my last day in the office,” said Lopeke. “People who’d worked on my teams wrote testimonials and creative graphics highlighting some our team successes. It's the best gift I ever received in my 40-year career.”

18. Elect them to the Wall of Fame. Several experts suggested setting aside a public space inside your firm and placing photos of employees who've accomplished something truly special, along with the details of what they did to earn their place on the wall.

19. Create your own "Club Med." Set aside a quiet space or unused office in your building where employees can meditate, chill out, nap or otherwise re-center themselves, said John Putzier, author of "Get Weird! 101 Innovative Ways to Make Your Company a Great Place to Work."

20. Stoke their passion. “Great employees are not mercenaries,” said Dr. Richard Chang, CEO of Richard Chang Associates Inc., a performance-improvement consultancy. “They don’t just want to enjoy their work, they want to be passionate about it ... if you want your employees to feel valued and inspire their passion on your behalf, encourage them to make their own decisions. You can have systems in place to control the implementation of ideas, but you must be certain not to compromise the enthusiasm, creativity and hard work that make them possible in the first place.”

21. Give them a place to park it. Reserve the best parking spot for employees who've done something truly worthwhile, said Lopeke. And if it's next to the CEO's Lexus so the employee can chat him or her up on the way into work, so much the better.

22. Remember the spouses. Independent management consultant Nan Amish recalled one time when she had 16 employees trapped in a hotel lobby on a Sunday night, waiting for the ballroom to open so they could set up a trade-show booth. “I bought flowers at a farmers market, a nice $6 bouquet of roses for each person,” she said. “I told them to take them home to their significant others, apologizing for me taking them away from their families on a Sunday. The next day I got thank-yous from most of them. One wife sent a letter saying I could keep her husband until Friday.”

23. Publicize their successes. “We like to publicly recognize employees so the whole company can share in their accomplishments,” noted Scott Ragusa, president of contract businesses for staffing firm The Winter, Wyman Companies. “Each week, nominations for our quarterly 'Clutch' award are shared with the whole company. The Clutch nominations are a way to recognize our administrative and nonmanagerial professional staff members who have come through in the clutch in supporting their departments or the firm.”

24. Let them phone it in. Telecommuting programs can relieve stress and make workers feel more appreciated, as well as more productive. “Reward the employee by starting with one day of telecommuting, then add additional days as performance heightens,” suggested Brian Margarita, president of IT staffing firm TalentFuse Inc. “Having the option to cart the kids to soccer practice, visit the beach during the afternoon or cut out early to avoid traffic congestion is becoming more important than working an 80-hour week for a larger paycheck.”

25. Remember the secret words. “The two most underused words in corporate America that get the highest ROI (return on investment) and ROT (return on your time) are the simple words 'thank you,'” noted Michael Guld, president of the Guld Resource Group author of "The Million Dollar Media Rep: How to Become a Television and Radio Sales Superstar."

While telling your employees you appreciate them should be obvious, added Amish, no one does it enough or is specific enough about what the employee did. “So when you share your appreciation, be specific about what you really liked, so they not only feel appreciated but can do it again.”

1. Take a Direct Personal Interest in All Your Team Members
This can be done by following these simple guidelines:

(i) Know Everyone by Name

Incredible, but true. I have met too many managers who do not even know the names of their team members. Any corporate structure is like a pyramid. No matter what part of the pyramid you occupy, the strength of the pyramid depends on the bottommost layer and it becomes imperative that you know all the people who report to you directly or indirectly. At least, the best managers have an uncanny knack of remembering peoples’ names and making casual personal enquiries about the well being of anyone they meet. Since this kind of behavior is not always experienced, it makes the people realize that they are being given personal attention and builds loyalty in the team. It satisfies the basic human craving of being noticed.

In his classic book “Strategies for success”, Jim Dornan mentions this very principle in the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, and I quote “An excellent example of this from history can be seen in the way Napoleon Bonaparte interacted with his men, he knew every officer of his army by name. He liked to wander through his camp, meet an officer, greet him by name, and talk about a battle or maneuver in which he knew this officer had been involved. He never missed an opportunity to inquire about a soldier’s home town, wife and family. When he did, it always amazed the man to see how much detailed personal information about him his Emperor knew.
Since every officer felt Napoleon’s personal interest in him – proved by his statements and questions- it is easy to understand the devotion they all felt for him.”

(ii) Connect with Everyone

Tough one to explain but let’s consider an example. Archimedes discovered the lever concept wherein let’s say you wanted to move a heavy rock you would be better advised to use a long rod rather than trying to move it with your bare hands.

Similarly, when it comes to people, you are better advised to build relationships first and then steer people in the direction you want them to move. Moreover, in this case, people will follow you willingly. Learn to persuade, not dominate. There is a vast difference between the two phrases ‘Can you please ensure that this is done?’ and ‘You need to complete this work by EOD today.’ One is a slight nudge or a request while the other is a kick. No one likes to be kicked.

Unfortunately, most managers are guilty of using “positional authority” to achieve their ends. John Maxwell talks about the various levels of leadership in his book “Developing the leader within you” and it is clear that positional authority is the worst form of leadership.

One way to measure where you stand on the leadership scale is to check how many juniors come to you for career advice and advice in other areas of their life. If people do not approach you, it means that you are not approachable which is a sorry state of affairs. You simply cannot progress if you are unable to connect with people and you can connect with people only when you take a genuine interest in them, their careers, lives, etc.

(iii) Protect Your Team at all Costs

Protect your team from:

Overenthusiastic sales personnel who try to impose their sales targets on developers
Powerful stakeholders who impose deadline pressure
Prima donna developers who start dominating juniors
Have genuine concern and take true care of your team – the best leaders are the ones who go to extreme lengths to protect the interests of their team. Sometimes, this may mean that you need to lock horns with your immediate superiors and higher management.
Remember, your team is your 1st concern.

Address all team concerns proactively - a concern, like a bomb can be handled if detected early. The greater the delay, the worse it becomes.

The result – people will start recognizing you as a person in whom they can put their faith and trust and become fiercely loyal.

(iv) Solve Problems Even If it is Outside the Scope of the Project

One of your key responsibilities as a Project Manager is to clear all the obstacles which come in the way of your team members and prevent them from performing at the optimum level. While most PMs do handle all the nagging problems faced within the office premises, very few actually look beyond that.

Onsite projects, for example, are always plagued with problems. Adjusting to the local food, travelling and place of residence, are basic requirements which should be taken care of at the very outset. I recall an onsite project wherein I had to visit a foreign country where the employer provided some excellent facilities like:

1 free telephone call every week to keep in touch with the family
A video conference with family members once in 6 months
Occasional weekend trips to famous spots in the city
The buddy concept wherein one local staff whom the onsite person had to interact with regularly was also asked to help him during his stay for other nagging problems – in fact, this was a KRA for the year.
Small acts like these ensured that the employees were happy and there was negligible attrition in the project for almost 3 years. Funny, but treating every team member as if he is your biggest customer yields rich dividends in the long run.

(v) Be Absolutely Honest and Transparent

Trust is the foundation stone of all relationships. Break trust and invite disaster. Be it organizational changes, cost cutting, layoffs, or any other news which impacts the team, always be the first one to inform the team openly and accurately.

In “The 7 habits of highly effective people”, Stephen Covey mentions the ‘Emotional Bank account’ and I quote “An Emotional Bank Account is a metaphor that describes the amount of trust that’s been built up in a relationship. It’s the feeling of safeness you have with another human being.”

Do all your team members feel safe when it concerns you – if not, you need to work towards building up the deposits in that emotional bank account with everyone.

2. Identify your Best People

Suppose you have access to a pool of 10 developers and need to identify the best candidate to commence work on a difficult module. If you fail to identify the right person, you will face problems later on with unfinished, substandard work and compromised deadlines. I usually use what I would like to call the POC – "Proof of Concept" strategy. Assign the task of developing the POC for a project related problem to the entire pool of available developers. The advantages are:

The proposed solution will tell you a lot about the individual’s capability
Usually, the turnaround time for any POC is a couple of days – effectively, you do not lose too much time in trying to determine who the right candidate is.
Over a period of time, you will be able to determine what the strengths and weaknesses of each individual in your team are, but the POC method always works at the initial stage.

3. Practice the 80/20 Rule

The Pareto principle, in the project management context would mean that 80% of the work is done by 20% of the team. This means that once you have identified your core 20%, make sure you are spending 80% of your time with them.

Sometimes, the weakest developers in your team can end up eating up your entire time and bring down the entire project over a period of time. The same applies to your core team as well – remember, your team is only as strong as its weakest link. Sometimes, the best developers end up spending most of their time in resolving problems faced by their weakest colleagues. Never allow this to happen.

The Pareto principle is beautifully illustrated in the book “Developing the Leader within you” by Dr. John Maxwell.

4. Place the Right People in the Right Areas

Over a period of about 3-6 months, you will be able to pinpoint people’s strengths and weaknesses if you are always involved at the ground level and not just living on updates like average project managers. At this point of time, it is important to strengthen the roles for the core 20% as all high-fliers eventually get restless. The following strategy can be used:

Excellent at analysis, design and finding solutions – needs to be in product development, should be assigned the most difficult modules. It’s a win-win situation, on the one hand, the module gets delivered and on the other, it also provides enough challenge for the developer and keeps him motivated.
Excellent at customer interaction and trouble-shooting. Understands the business impact well – needs to be in production support and over a period of time can occupy the team leader’s position in production support.
Excellent at co-ordination and customer interaction – can be assigned the role of an implementation expert. This role mainly involves interacting with other teams like DBAs, change managers, business users, testers, etc. It also demands that the person has the capability to understand an implemented solution entirely. Such a person may not necessarily be good at finding solutions but remember, his role as an implementer does not demand the same most of the time.
Make sure expectations and responsibilities of the assigned roles are made clear to everyone involved. This tells the top performers that their careers are being taken care of. At the same time, it also ensures that the right responsibilities are being delegated to the right people and will eventually result in the project manager having greater control over his time. Designations are limited but roles can always be created.

Sometimes, people may require counselling to understand their own strengths and weaknesses. More often than not, developers are only interested in coding new modules and do not realize where they can excel. This is where your powers of persuasion will be tested.

Delegation is a two-edged sword, do it right and it will allow you to take up more work and lead to an increase in responsibility, do it badly and you will end up answering escalation emails and attending damage-control meetings.

5. Create Career Development Plans for all your Key People

Most project managers never quite get down to working this step, yet, this is the key step to stem attrition and hold on to your best team members. The best people are usually interested in the following aspects of a job:

Career growth, i.e. growth in responsibility
Growth in income
Better role
Overall, the best people are mainly interested in knowing if the current job provides them enough opportunities to advance towards their long term career goals which might be of becoming an enterprise software architect, project manager, etc.

The following steps can be followed:

(i) Identify the Long Term Career Goals for Each Individual

Use one to one meetings to identify the long term goals of each individual. This will be possible only if you have connected well with each individual as detailed in the earlier steps – if not, you may not even be able to initiate this meeting. The key here is to identify what aspects of the job the individual likes and where he would eventually like to end up in the field. At the end of this discussion, both the individual and you should be clear about the following things about the individual:

Long term career goal, for e.g. becoming an enterprise architect
Current strengths – technical and personal
Current gaps – technical and personal
What should be the next step towards moving towards the role of enterprise architect?
What technology has the candidate not worked on till date and needs exposure?
What are his training needs which will help him move faster towards his goal?
Make sure all these points are documented well and kept confidential. This discussion becomes the basis of future discussions.

The candidate should start getting a vision and game plan as to what is required to achieve his long term goal and what is the next step. For example, a software engineer should first aspire to become a Senior Software Engineer followed by Tech lead and so on.

(ii) Map Individual Goals to Project Goals
This is an extremely powerful concept. If you have followed project management practices at some level and have a clear idea of the project deliverables and the different technologies which will be used, you will be in a position to do work allocation correctly. Before allocating any task, ask yourself:

Is the individual capable of completing this task?
Does it provide him “controlled stretch” which means whether the task will force the person to stretch his abilities and grow in the process?
Does it help him advance towards his long term goal?
Do this right and you will end up having a high-performing team which is also highly motivated.

Every assignment you allocate to an individual should help him move toward his next career goal. Between the decision to quit and the next job lies the quality of assignments given – it is the project manager who decides the team’s attrition rate to a great extent.

“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”

- Zig Ziglar

(iii) Create a Leadership Incubator

If you have done the earlier steps right, you will soon reach a point wherein you will have high-performing team members who will continuously take up new challenges. Over a period of time, the entire team environment will start reflecting the same.

(iv) Some Will Still Move On

Despite the best of opportunities, some people will still choose to move on due to various reasons.

Some will outgrow their immediate environment, i.e. your project and will move on – thank them for their contribution. They will always remember you for the role you played in mentoring them.

This is the point where the leadership incubator you have created will be put to good use – others will be ready to occupy the position of the person who has moved on. Succession planning needs to happen at all levels and not just at the topmost management levels.

(v) Believe in Everybody – Wait for Nobody

One word of caution – you can only help someone to rise higher if he himself is interested and committed towards the same. People can be divided into 2 types – types A are the moving cars (ambitious, career oriented people) which only need to be steered in the right direction. Type B are the parked cars (comfortable, stagnating people) which need to be started off or even pushed in some cases. Do not spend too much time on Type B – remember the 80/20 rule.

(vi) Replace Yourself Eventually

Remember, your influence as a person will grow only when your people grow. You cannot rise unless you replace yourself first. For insecure people, this will be hard to digest. You cannot occupy a new chair unless you vacate the chair which you currently occupy.

This principle is beautifully brought out in the book “The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership” by Dr. John Maxwell. 3 laws mentioned in the book are relevant in this context.

The Law of Empowerment – only secure leaders give power to others
The Law of Reproduction – it takes a leader to raise up a leader
The Law of Explosive growth – To add growth, add followers – to multiple, lead leaders
While it goes without saying that reaching this point will take time and effort – this is the only way to go forward and rise higher. The transformation happens within you first and the eventual handing over of higher responsibility to you is only an acknowledgement of what you have already become on the inside.

6. Praise Publicly and Criticize Privately

Never miss spotting someone doing the right thing – and always acknowledge and reward the same. People literally crave for a kind word and will eventually repeat their best performance when they are recognized for the same.

On the contrary, if a situation demands that some harsh words need to be spoken, then always ensure that this happens in a closed door meeting and never in public. Also, take particular care that you do not violate someone’s sense of self-respect but at the same time you make a person realize the gravity of his mistake.

7. Show Empathy, Not Sympathy

Empathize with people when they miss project deadlines due to personal problems, but do not sympathize.

The dictionary meaning of sympathy is “the feeling of being sorry for someone”,” support for or approval of something” and that of empathy is “understand and share the feelings of another”. There is a qualitative difference between both. When you show sympathy, you will allow a person to drag you into his well of woe whereas when you show empathy you will help or empower him to solve his problem or move on and find someone else to do the job.

Let’s face it, any real project will throw up countless problems at the project and at the individual level. Having empathy will ensure that you give everyone a fair chance but overdoing the same will only lead to a bad situation. This is a key factor to consider when a team member’s personal problems lead to failed deliverables or compromised deadlines.

8. Share Successes with the Team, but Take Responsibility for Failures

Always ensure that the top performers get public recognition for their efforts. This is easy in organizations where you have a quarterly rewards and recognition program. In organizations where this is not the case, the project manager needs to be creative. One way to do this is to be a good promoter of people, this leads to people becoming more and more motivated and striving to consistently meet the high standards they themselves have set.

On the other hand, all failures need to be handled internally. Never reprimand the team members responsible for any mistakes in public. Failure makes a person feel miserable anyway – and highlighting the same too much only adds to his woes. The Project Manager needs to play a key role here in shielding his people.

This is the hallmark of all great leaders. In “Wings of Fire: Autobiography of Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam” an incident is mentioned wherein Dr. Kalam took total responsibility for the SLV-3 (Satellite Launch Vehicle) failure in front of a big group of scientists. The book also mentions another incident when he asked his team members to present their individual reports on the areas they were working on rather than he doing it himself thus giving the team an opportunity for recognition in front of the scientific community. No wonder he is considered one of the most successful scientists to have led India’s space and missile program.

9. Organize Trainings

The training budget is a powerful tool in your hands, use it wisely. Create the training calendar in the beginning of the year keeping in mind the following requirements:

Technical requirements of the project
Individual training requirements to boost career growth
Any gap in skills that needs to be addressed
Quite often it happens that a year passes by without the organizing of any proper training programs and the last quarter is packed with training programs of little value to the individuals involved and the organization itself. Never allow this to happen.

Internal training programs can also be conducted by the various individuals involved in the project on technologies used in the project itself or otherwise. This is an opportunity for personal growth for many individuals.

Trainings always give individuals a good release from project pressure and also helps to reinforce the conviction that the organization is serious about their future and increasing their skills.

10. Celebrate Phase Completion

Whenever a major project phase is over, celebrate. Put the staff welfare budget to good use. Nine pin bowling matches, group movie outings are opportunities which allow people to recharge their batteries. It also provides ample opportunities to build team spirit and strengthen relationships.

11. Balance the Workload Well

Ensure that no single individual is getting overburdened. This also calls for proactive leave management of the entire team. On occasions, you may also need to force some workaholics to take leave.

It is small acts such as these which help you make small deposits in the emotional bank account which we talked about earlier. And these deposits reap rich dividends when the time comes.

12. Do Not Ask for Too Many Updates

Do not be a status update maniac – trust your people to be responsible and deliver results. Ask for an update only when necessary – the best people will usually themselves keep you apprised of the status of the tasks they are working on.

13. Lead by Example

Always be a person worthy of emulation. Set high standards for yourself and do not impose any rule on the team which you do not follow yourself. People automatically follow what they see you do on a daily basis and not what you tell them to do. If you cannot be the first person to enter office, at least be the last person to leave after a hard day’s work and do this only after personally ensuring that your entire team has left for the day. Always walk the extra mile for the team – always come to the forefront when required, be it project problems, technical problems, any problem which hampers progress. When people observe you walking the extra mile consistently, a wonderful chain reaction happens. Some of your elite team members start following your example and this leads to a multiplication of efforts and results.

Consider the equation:
1 person = 1 extra mile
10 persons = 10 extra miles

Do you think this will have a big project impact, you bet !

As John Maxwell says, “The right to lead is earned, not given.” In his classic book “Right to lead” Dr. Maxwell mentions an incident wherein Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf stepped into a mine field to save an injured soldier and the ripple effect it had on all the people in his division. No wonder he was called upon to lead the critical operation during the Gulf war.

True leaders always emerge out of nowhere when a major crisis develops.

14. Motivate the Maintenance Team

Quite often, you will be faced with a situation wherein the production support team starts to feel that they are a group of 2nd class citizens and will develop an inferiority complex and get demotivated which can have a serious impact on the service delivery function. Motivating the maintenance team is a tough task but I have used the following techniques to good effect:

Emphasize the fact to the maintenance team that since they interact with the business users on a daily basis, they are the custodians of the image of IT more than anybody else, including you. The responsibility of the development team ends with project success, but the maintenance team is mainly responsible for ensuring that operations run smoothly and ongoing business success.
The job, contrary to the traditional belief is tough. More often than not, the maintenance team is at the receiving end of bad design decisions taken during development and has to put in quite a lot of performance enhancing fixes in place as the usage of the system increases.
Only maintenance engineers understand a system and the business domain in totality. This is due to the sheer nature of the work. Development engineers never usually seek to understand modules outside the scope of what has been allocated to them.
The crucial life skill of crisis management – taking decisions under mounting pressure can only be learnt in production support. This can never be learnt in development where someone senior will shield you.
When maintenance engineers understand the above points, they gradually begin to understand the value of the work which they do on a daily basis and where it fits in the bigger picture. And once people realize that their work is being valued, they usually stop complaining.

The same point is beautifully brought out in Sir Winston Churchill’s life during the Second World War. Dr. John Maxwell calls this the Law of the Big Picture in his book “The 17 indispensable laws of teamwork.” The book mentions how Sir Churchill managed to motivate coal miners to continue working on the inglorious task of working in the mines against opting to fight in the war on the frontline. A must read account if you are serious about going up on the leadership scale.

Moreover, there are ample career options in production support as well. With most organizations embracing ITIL and standards such as ValIT gaining ground, the service delivery function is being seen as a key provider of ongoing business value. Once maintenance engineers realize that they are not in a dead-end situation and career growth options are available they will not display negative attitude. This is where the project manager plays a key role. Organize ITIL trainings and watch how the maintenance team starts enjoying their role.

15. Sack Non-performers Tactfully

If you have recruited the person after proper evaluation, you will never be faced with this option. However, on occasions you will be called upon to do the inevitable. How do you still retain trust and loyalty in the team? The following strategies have helped me:

Ensure that you give the non-performer a fair chance – try to place him in an area which involves routine work and which does not involve much thinking. Many routine maintenance tasks involve only log monitoring – poor performers can be accommodated in such areas.

Use counselling to good effect – give the person a chance to close gaps and raise his performance to an acceptable level.

Ensure that all the other team members are well aware that the guy is failing to meet the minimum requirements of the job. This needs to be done in a subtle manner – it should not be too obvious.

Exercise all options before giving the final notice – and ensure that all the other team members are well aware that there really was no other option available.
Maintaining transparency in such matters ensures that there is no loss of trust and loyalty in the team. People realize that no one can be continuously paid for doing nothing.

In an interview on CNBC, Mr. Narayan Murthy, the chief mentor of Infosys mentioned that the best leaders have the ability to cast vision and the best people need to see themselves growing into important roles and achieving bigger goals in that vision.

There is a positive way to give negative feedback

Step 1: Explain the possible consequences for you both. Example: "The GM got a bit annoyed with me last week and I'm sure he expects much higher performance from my department. I know that if this continues, he is likely to come down on us pretty hard."

Step 2: Describe the behavior that is causing you the problem. Example: "For the last three weeks, the reports I get each week from your department have been at least a day late."

Step 3: Ask for his/her assistance. Example: "What can you do to help me solve this situation?"

Step 4: As the manager, you must take responsibility for the performance problem. After all, if the employee's performance does not improve, whose problem is it? For example you might start the conversation with :"Stephen, I have an (issue / problem / situation) that I need your help with."

Step 5: Tell him/her how you feel about the problem. Example: "I am keen to keep a good relationship with our GM."

Step 6: Explain why this is a problem for you. .Example: "This means that I can't get the reports collated with those from the other departments in time to get them to the GM to meet his deadline."

The underlying principles to keep in mind when applying this approach are:

As the manager, you always maintain ownership of the problem

The aim of the process is to have the employee take ownership of the solution

Always describe the action of the employee, not them, their personality or their character. Use positive words and avoid words such as "but", "Yes, but" - for more information on the use of positive words see "Are You Positive or Negative" http://www.positivearticles.com/Article/Are-You-Positive-or-Negative---Does-Your-Behaviour-Impact-Those-Around-You-And-Can-You-Change-It-/1296

"The real value of an exit interview is in the information one can obtain to protect the company and save a lot of time, trouble and expenses later" writes E J Sarma

Exit Interview Format

Understanding why your employees leave is almost as important as understanding why they stay. Some would say it is even more important. An employee’s real reasons for leaving can be revealed in exit interviews. Interviews that are conducted by the human resources department or other company employees at time of resignation may or may not produce accurate and legitimate answers. Most departing employees are reluctant to reveal important demotivators because they do not want to burn their bridges. They may not want to offend the management at that sensitive time of saying good-bye.
An experienced third party, a consultant or firm that specializes in conducting these sensitive interviews and collecting a wealth of invaluable inputs, can often accomplish effective and productive exit interviews. The information gathered in this process can guide corporate management in making changes that will reduce future turnover, as well as potentially solve other problems in the organization.
What is the best way to process an employee’s exit? HR always recommends an exit interview. The process is predictably simple while most people think it’s a big waste of time. If a person resigns, you already know why he is leaving. But mostly the stated reasons are far from true, most resignations state personal reasons or better prospects. If one is being discharged, he will be angry and won’t tell anything useful anyway. Why bother then?
There are a lot of good reasons to bother—administration, protection and good management practice are among them. From an administrative standpoint alone, an exit interview provides an opportunity to get needed information (like where to send the employee’s settlement cheque, TDS certificate, retrieve company property (keys, mobile, swipe cards credit cards, laptops, etc.), clear up any outstanding issues like expense advances and deliver required information.
Administrative details are important, but the real value of an exit interview is in the information one can obtain to protect the company and save a lot of time, trouble and expense later. For example, it is not uncommon for an employee to resign, or be discharged for a reason, but when tactfully handled can reveal the real reasons in an exit interview. For instance, recently when I had handled an exit interview, a very senior executive told me that he is quitting because he is pretty annoyed with the CEO’s arrogance and style.
In a broader perspective, exit interviews provide information about overall management style of the company. An employee who is discharged may not be happy about it, and his or her comments will have a negative slant. But there’s usually plenty of truth to be learned as well. In one case we had observed that one department had a high turnover and exit interviews reflected problem areas like partisan attitude of the supervisor. Consistently high turnover in certain positions can be an indicator that the job or the work is not defined properly, thus, the wrong people are being hired. Reasons for voluntarily separation may be valid, like lack of benefits or low pay or even unsatisfactory designations, improper grades, etc.
Some thoughts about how you say good-bye to employees, whatever be the reason for their exit, salvage some credibility. If it’s a discharge, you’ll want to do damage control as much as possible. Recently, two people who were asked to go within two months of joining, told me how brutal the HR general manager was in handling the exits. Depressed and victimised they felt more angry and vengeful for the simple reason that the HR was even forcing the person to interview candidates on the very morning when he was told to go.
Treating people as human as possible is a good management practice and that dictates he or she be treated with professional courtesy and respect. Conduct the exit meeting as privately as possible. Taking a more positive view of the exit—this is also the time when many employees are willing to point at deficiencies in the company, comments such as, “poor management or supervision”, “complete lack of supervision and support”, “poor communications”, etc, have come quite often when I had handled exit interviews. Any company management that is honest with itself will use these responses to look into the claims and make corrections where the allegations are found or known to be true.
While handling exit interviews handle the employee in simple, direct terms and discuss under what circumstances the decision has been made or try and figure out what triggered the decision to quit. It is invariable that something snapped inside. Without a debate on the merits, gather all required information and record and do paperwork and handle the exit with the final settlement check, so that whatever suspicion the person has is nullified. Whether the separation is voluntary or not, HR has to make sure that the employee leaves without any incident. Exit interview and counselling can avoid much of unpleasantness, someone who can handle the person at times of emotional disturbance is only the HR person.
Exit is just as important as the procedures one uses while hiring. Handled in a professional way, exit practices can be constructive, useful and improve your work environment and above all add to retention.

Go Through' it.

Question 1: You are driving along in your car on a wild, stormy night, it's raining heavily, when suddenly you pass by a bus stop, and you see three people waiting for a bus:

An old lady who looks as if she is about to die.
An old friend who once saved your life.
The perfect partner you have been dreaming about.

Which one would you choose to offer a ride to, knowing very well that there could only be one passenger in your car?

This is a moral/ethical dilemma that was once actually used as part of a job application.

You could pick up the old lady, because she is going to die, and thus you should save her first;
or you could take the old friend because he once saved your life, and this would be the perfect chance to ! pay him back.
However, you may never be able to find your perfect mate again.

The candidate who was hired (out of 200 applicants) had no trouble coming up with his answer. Guess what was his answer?

He simply answered:

"I would give the car keys to my Old friend and let him take the lady to the hospital. I would stay behind and wait for the bus with the partner of my dreams."

Sometimes, we gain more if we are able to give up our stubborn thought limitations. Never forget to "Think Outside of the Box."



Question 2: What will you do if I run away with your sister?"

The candidate who was selected answered " I will not get a better match for my sister than you sir"



Question 3: Interviewer (to a student girl candidate) - What is one morning you woke up found that you were pregnant.

Girl - I will be very excited and take an off, to celebrate with my husband.

Normally an unmarried girl will be shocked to hear this, but she managed it well. Why I should think it in the wrong way, she said later when asked



Question 4: Interviewer: He ordered a cup of coffee for the candidate. Coffee arrived kept before the candidate, then he asked what is before you?

Candidate: Instantly replied "Tea"

He got selected.

You know how and why did he say "TEA" when he knows very well that coffee was kept before.

(Answer: The question was "What is before you (UA - alphabet)
Reply was "TEA" ( TA - alphabet)

Alphabet "TA" was before Alphabet "UA"



Question 5: Where Lord Ram would have celebrated his "First Diwali"? People will start thinking of Ayodya, Motile [Janaki's place], Lanka etc...

But the logic is, Diwali was a celebrated as a mark of Lord Krishna Killing Narakasura. In Dusavataar, Krishnavathaar comes after Raamavathaar.

So, Lord Rama would not have celebrated the Diwali At all!



Question 6: The interviewer asked to the candidate "This is your last question of the interview. Please tell me the exact position of the center of this table where u have kept your files."

Candidate confidently put one of his finger at some point at the table and told that this was the central point at the table. Interviewer asked how did u get to know that this being the central point of this table, then he answers quickly that sir UA hr not likely to ask any more question, as it was the last question that UA promised to ask.....

And hence, he was selected as because of his quick-wittedness. ........


This is What Interviewer expects from the Interviewee. ....

Abbreviations are considered as the luxury of the lazy. Yet, life in the profession could be quite un-exciting without them. How many times have you noticed the Boss marking you the papers in the office by writing, "FNA". And then you carry out the task & send him the note "FKAP". Similarly, "FKPP", "KA", "ASAP","KRA", "MBO", etc. etc. have all been be widely used, understood or abused in the "CJ" of "MNC"&"LJ". For the under-exposed or less-initiated professional corporate mortals (like most of us) needing "HS" breeding, these alphabets packaged in inverted commas mean, "For necessary action", "For Kind Approval Please", "For Kind Perusal Please", "Kindly Advise", "As Soon As Possible", "Key Results Area", "Management By Objectives", "Corporate Jungle", "Multi-National Corporation", and "Lala Ji" respectively . Don't forget the "HS" promoted by the Latka-Jhatka TV anchor person in UN-CENSORED. You still have not got the meaning of "HS"! How "LS"? ("High Society", "Low Society"). When I used to handle placements, I was very fond of using "BOD" and "LBW". Please don't give a blank expression, like most give when they don't know what is there in the abbreviation. Yeah! That's better. The blank expressions are usually there for split seconds only; afterwards everyone is talented enough to hide the bliss of ignorance. Let me tell you a secret - I do the same…Pshsh… "BOD" is meant for giving "Benefit of Doubt" to the candidates. I never reject anyone. I only declare them "LBW"- "Let The Bugger (or Babe) Wait". I love Abbreviations. I don't mind when some people call it a habit of lazy people. Ask them to speak, at least ten times, the full form of "SPICMACAY" (Society for Promotion of Indian Classical Music And Culture Amongst Youth) or the now redundant "COFEPOSA" (Conservation Of Foreign Exchange and Prevention Of Smuggling Activities Act). One of our renowned leader has kept "MISA" as the name of his daughter. I wonder whether he would like to call her every time as "Maintenance of Internal Securities Act". Coming back to the world of Management Abbreviations, I've compiled a reasonably decent list for your everyday benefit. This list is for professional enrichment and amusement without any copyright attachment.

A
AAMOF - As A Matter Of Fact
AAR - After Action Review
AFAIK - As Far As I Know
AL - Accelerated Learning
ALARA - As Low As Reasonably Achievable
ASAP - As Soon As Possible
ATS - Advanced Training System
A/V - Audio Visual

B
B&P - Bid and Proposal BEER - Behavior, Effect, Expectation, Results (for feedback for improvement) BET - Behavior, Effect, Thanks (for positive feedback) BPR - Business Process Re-engineering BST - Basic Skills Trainer BTW - By The Way

C
CAI - Computer-Aided Instruction CAUSED - Can they do it, do they have a positive Attitude, is it Useful to them, are they Skilled in it, do they have similar Experience, is it Different. CAX - Computer Assisted Exercises CBI - Computer-Based Instruction CBT - Computer-Based Training or Competency Based Training CETA - Cost-Effective Training Analysis CMI - Computer Managed Instruction CP - Change Proposal CPI - Continuous Process Improvement

D
DMP - Data Management Plan DR - Design Review DSM - Don't Shoot Me DTP -Detailed Test Plan

E
ECR - Electronic Classroom ENDEX - End of EXercise ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning EOD - End Of Discussion EPSS - Electronic Performance Support System ERIC - Educational Resources Information Center ET - Embedded Training; Evaluation Tool ETC - Estimate To Complete EQ - Emotional Quotient

F
FOJT - Formal On-the-Job Training FTX - Field Training Exercise FWIW - For What It's Worth FYCP - Future Years Corporate Plan FYI - For Your Information

G
GIGO - Garbage In, Garbage Out GOK - God Only Knows GTA - Graphical Training Aid

H
HPT - Human Performance Technology HR - Human Resources HRD - Human Resource Development HRM - Human Resource Management HUMINT - Human Intelligence

I
I&D - Integration and Development I&KP - Instructor and Key Personnel IAW - In Accordance With ICW - Interactive Courseware IIRC - If I Recall Correctly IKPT - Instructor and Key Personnel Training IMI - Interactive Multimedia Instruction IMHO - In My Humble Opinion INPO - In No Particular Order I/O - Input/Output IOW - In Other Words IPT - Integrated Product Team IQ - Intelligence Quotient ISD - Instructional System Development ISD/SAT - Instructional Systems Development/Systems Approach to Training IT - Instructional Technology ITP - Individual Training Plan ITS - Integrated Training System or Individual Training Standard

J
JA - Job Aid JITT - Just-In-Time Training

K
KA - Knowledge Acquisition KAS (KSA) - Knowledge, Attitudes, Skills KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid KITA - Kick In The Ass (a motivational method)

L
LG - Lecture Guide LO - Learning Objective LRC - Learning Resource Center

M
MINIEX - Mini-EXercise MOP - Measure Of Performance MPA - Motivation Problem analysis MS - Milestone

N
NA - Needs Assessment NDI - Non Developmental Item NIS - Not In Specification NLP - Neuro-Linguistic Programming

O
OJT - On-the-Job Training OOBE - Out-Of-Box Experience OTM - One Time Measure OTOH - On The Other Hand

P
P3I - Pre-Planned Product Improvement PA - Performance Assessment PE - Practical Exercise PEBCAK- Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard PFA - Pulled from the Air PITA - Pain In The Ass PMFJI - Pardon Me For Jumping In PPM - Policy and Procedures Manual PPP - Personnel Performance Profile PR - Program Review PTR - Problem Trouble Report

Q
QA - Quality Assurance QAR - Quality Assurance Evaluator QC - Quality Control QI - Quality Improvement QM - Quality Management QVT - Quality Verification Test

R
RAD - Rapid Application Development RBM - Rational Behavioral Model RESA - Research, Evaluation, and Systems Analysis RFI - Request For Information RFP - Request For Proposal RFT - Ready For Training

S
SAT - Systems Approach to Training SGI - Small Group Instruction SGL - Small Group Leader SIM - Simulator SIMTECH - Simulation Technology SITD - Still In The Dark SKA - Skills, Knowledge, Attitude SMART - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time based (objective and goal setting) SME - Subject Matter Expert SOO - Statement Of Objectives SOW - Statement Of Work SPEC - Specification SQ3R - Survey the material to be learned, develop Questions about the material, Read the material, Recall the key ideas, Review the material (learning strategy) SQT - Skills Qualification Test STRAP - System Training Plan STX - Situational Training Exercise

T
T&D - Training and Development T&E - Training And Evaluation TA - Transactional Analysis TADS - Training Analysis Data Sheet TADSS - Training Aids, Devices, Simulators, and Simulations TBA - To Be Announced TBD - To Be Determined TDNS - Training Development Needs Statement TDS - Training Development Study TE - Training Emphasis TEA - Training Effectiveness Advocate or Training Effectiveness Analysis TEE - Training Effectiveness Evaluation TEEP - Training Effectiveness Evaluation Plan TEMP - Test and Evaluation Master Plan TFT - Technical Feasibility Test TINSTAAFL - There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch TKT - Threshold Knowledge Test TLA - Training Level Assignment TLO - Terminal Learning Objective TM - Technical Manual TMO - Training Material Outline TMP - Training Management Plan TO -Task Order TOIS - Task Oriented Instructional System TOS - Training Objective Statement TPR - Trained Personnel Requirement TPTB - The Powers That Be TQM - Total Quality Management TQR - Training Quality Report TR - Training Requirement TRADE - Training Devices TSA - Training Situation Analysis TSFC - Training System Functional Characteristics TSP - Training Support Package TT - Technical Test TTHSS - Touch, Taste, Hear, Sight, Smell (5 Senses) TWI - Training Within Industry

V
VAK - Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic VI - Visual Information VV&A - Verification, Validation, and Accreditation VV&C - Verification, Validation and Certification

W
WAG - Wild Assed Guess WBI - Web Based Instruction WBPSS - Web Based Performance Support System WBS - Work Breakdown Structure WIIFM - What's In It For Me WYSBYGI - What You See Before You Get It WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get

Y
YAFA - Yet Another Fine Acronym YMMV - Your Mileage May Vary YOYO - You're On Your Own YTD - Year To Date

Z
ZD - Zero Defects

Author: Stephen Covey

Discover the 90/10 Principle.

It will change your life (at least the way you react to situations).
What is this principle? 10% of life is made up of what happens to you. 90% of life is decided by how you react.

What does this mean? We really have no control over 10% of what happens to us.
We cannot stop the car from breaking down. The plane will be late arriving, which throws our whole schedule off. A driver may cut us off in traffic.
We have no control over this 10%. The other 90% is different. You determine the other 90%.

How? ……….By your reaction.
You cannot control a red light. but you can control your reaction. Don't let people fool you; YOU can control how you react.

Let's use an example.
You are eating breakfast with your family. Your daughter knocks over a cup of coffee onto your business shirt. You have no control over what just happened.
What happens next will be determined by how you react.

You curse.

You harshly scold your daughter for knocking the cup over. She breaks down in tears. After scolding her, you turn to your spouse and criticize her for placing the cup too close to the edge of the table. A short verbal battle follows. You storm upstairs and change your shirt. Back downstairs, you find your daughter has been too busy crying to finish breakfast and get ready for school. She misses the bus.
Your spouse must leave immediately for work. You rush to the car and drive your daughter to school. Because you are late, you drive 40 miles an hour in a 30 mph speed limit.

After a 15-minute delay and throwing $60 traffic fine away, you arrive at school. Your daughter runs into the building without saying goodbye. After arriving at the office 20 minutes late, you find you forgot your briefcase. Your day has started terrible. As it continues, it seems to get worse and worse. You look forward to coming home.

When you arrive home, you find small wedge in your relationship with your spouse and daughter.

Why? …. Because of how you reacted in the morning.
Why did you have a bad day?
A) Did the coffee cause it?
B) Did your daughter cause it?
C) Did the policeman cause it?
D) Did you cause it?
The answer is “D".

You had no control over what happened with the coffee. How you reacted in those 5 seconds is what caused your bad day.

Here is what could have and should have happened.

Coffee splashes over you. Your daughter is about to cry. You gently say, "Its ok honey, you just need to be more careful next time". Grabbing a towel you rush upstairs. After grabbing a new shirt and your briefcase, you come back down in time to look through the window and see your child getting on the bus. She turns and waves. You arrive 5 minutes early and cheerfully greet the staff. Your boss comments on how good the day you are having.

Notice the difference?

Two different scenarios. Both started the same. Both ended different.

Why?

Because of how you REACTED.
You really do not have any control over 10% of what happens. The other 90% was determined by your reaction.

Here are some ways to apply the 90/10 principle. If someone says something negative about you, don't be a sponge. Let the attack roll off like water on glass. You don't have to let the negative comment affect you!

React properly and it will not ruin your day. A wrong reaction could result in losing a friend, being fired, getting stressed out etc.

How do you react if someone cuts you off in traffic? Do you lose your temper? Pound on the steering wheel? A friend of mine had the steering wheel fall off) Do you curse? Does your blood pressure skyrocket? Do you try and bump them?

WHO CARES if you arrive ten seconds later at work? Why let the cars ruin your drive?
Remember the 90/10 principle, and do not worry about it.

You are told you lost your job.

Why lose sleep and get irritated? It will work out. Use your worrying energy and time into finding another job.

The plane is late; it is going to mangle your schedule for the day. Why take outpour frustration on the flight attendant? She has no control over what is going on.
Use your time to study, get to know the other passenger. Why get stressed out? It will just make things worse.

Now you know the 90-10 principle. Apply it and you will be amazed at the results. You will lose nothing if you try it. The 90-10 principle is incredible. Very few know and apply this principle.

The result?

Millions of people are suffering from undeserved stress, trials, problems and heartache. We all must understand and apply the 90/10 principle.
It CAN change your life!!!

Enjoy….

Article by HBR

No executive can forge a successful career without volunteering for high-risk assignments. But some risky jobs seem to promise only disaster, not advancement. Consider William Peace's decision, against the advice of his closest aides, to meet alone with 15 people he had just laid off. The encounter was emotionally bruising, just as Peace knew it would be. He sat and listened as his former employees poured out their grief, anger, and bewilderment. When they were through, he patiently explained why the survival of the business required that he let them go, even though there was nothing wrong with their performance. And then he explained again.
The meeting had a surprising denouement, which you can discover for yourself in the pages that follow. But it's giving nothing away to point out that Peace's display of vulnerability and accessibility was seen for what it was: a sign of strength, not weakness.
The 1991 article that Peace crafted out of his experiences added a new dimension to the portrait of the leader. Quietly but thoroughly, he smashed the icon of the armor-plated hero and replaced it with a flesh-and-blood human being-fallible, vulnerable, and for those very reasons, credible and effective.
I AM A SOFT MANAGER. Unlike the classic leaders of business legend with their towering serf-confidence, their unflinching tenacity, their hard, lonely lives at the top, I try to be vulnerable to criticism, I do my best to be tentative, and I cherish my own fair share of human frailty. But like them, I too have worked hard to master my management style, and on the whole I think it compares favorably with theirs.
In my vocabulary, soft management does not mean weak management. A tentative approach to a critical decision in an unfamiliar environment is not a sign of indecision but of common sense. Criticism from your subordinates is not necessarily a sign of disrespect; they may be offering the wisdom and experience of a different perspective.
Conversely, tough management does not necessarily mean effective management. Self-confidence can be a cover for arrogance or fear, "resolute" can be a code word for autocratic, and "hardnosed" can mean thick-skinned
I believe that openness is a productive management technique and that intentional vulnerability is an effective management style. The soft management I believe in and do my best to practice is a matter of making hard choices and of accepting personal responsibility for decisions. I have a couple of stories that illustrate what I mean.
In the early 1980s, I was general manager of the Synthetic Fuels Division of Westinghouse. Unfortunately, the decline in oil prices that followed the second oil shock in 1979 had led Westinghouse top management to decide to get out of the synthetic fuels business, so my staff and I had to find a buyer and consummate a sale within a few months or face the prospect of seeing our division dismantled and liquidated.
In an effort to make ourselves attractive, we had already trimmed the workforce from 240 to about 130, most of them engaged in the design, testing, and marketing of a coal gasification process that we were confident would one day produce electric power from coal efficiently, cleanly, and economically. While we believed in the technology, we realized that, in the midst of a recession, there weren't many buyers for energy businesses that could offer only future profits.
For the employees in the division, closure would mean more than unemployment. It would mean shattering the dream of building a great new business, a dream many of us had been working toward for more than five years. Unfortunately, even with the reduced workforce, we had a dilemma. The continuing financial drain we represented tended to shorten the corporation's patience, but if we cut employment too much, we would have nothing left to sell. Moreover, as winter approached, my staff and I became concerned that Westinghouse was about to set an absolute deadline for selling the division.
My senior managers and I approached this dilemma as gingerly as we could, with much discussion and no foregone conclusions. We decided that a further reduction in force of 15 people was both necessary to sustain the corporation's goodwill and tolerable, perhaps even desirable, from the point of view of selling the business. We then examined various alternatives for selecting the people to lay off. We agreed that our criteria would not include performance as such. Instead, we decided to choose jobs with the lowest probable value to a potential buyer, provided only they were not essential to the task of selling the business. For example, we decided that we could get along with two technicians in the chemistry lab instead of three.
After about an hour of give-and-take, some of it heated, we agreed to a list of 15 names, and as the meeting drew to a close, one department head said to the others, "Well, let's go tell them." It had been our practice in past layoffs to choose an hour when all managers with people on the reduction list would call them in and give them the bad news.
"No," I said, "I'm going to tell them myself."
"But that's not necessary," someone replied.
"I think it is necessary," I said.
I was concerned that a further reduction in force might lead the remaining employees to conclude that management had given up on selling the business and that it was only a matter of time before we laid off everyone else as well and closed the business down. If they were to draw that conclusion, many of our most valuable people would leave. During months of uncertainty about the future of the division, our best engineering and marketing people had located opportunities with other companies, and they were now sitting on those offers waiting to see what would happen to Synthetic Fuels. They needed to hear the real reasons for the layoffs from me-personally.
I asked my senior managers to send all employees on the reduction-in-force list to a conference room early the following morning. I wanted to explain as truthfully as I could what it was we were doing and why.
Walking into the conference room the next morning was like walking into a funeral home. The 15 employees sat around the table in mourning. Most of the women were crying. Most of the men, stunned and dejected, were staring at the table-top. Their managers sat in chairs against the wall, clearly wishing they were somewhere else. I had not expected my staff to announce the purpose of the meeting, but, obviously, people knew.
I summoned my courage and took the chair that was at the head of the table. I told the employees we were going to lay them off and that all of us, I in particular, felt very bad about it. I went through our reasoning on the reduction in force, putting particular emphasis on our belief that this RIF would improve our chances of selling the division-as opposed to closing it. I told them we were, in effect, sacrificing a few for the benefit of many. I explained the criteria we had used and observed that while we felt our thinking was sound and believed we had matched people to the criteria in good faith, we understood that they might well disagree. I said we were doing the best we could-imperfect as that might be-to save the business. I asked them not to blame their managers. I ordered them not to blame themselves-our decision was in no way a value judgment on them as individuals, I said. If they wanted someone to blame, I urged them to blame me.
These remarks took about 15 minutes, and then I asked for questions. The initial responses were all attempts to discredit the selection process. "But why aren't you taking performance into account?" one woman asked. "My supervisor has told me my performance is excellent. What's the point of doing a good job if you only get laid off?"
"I've been here for 11 years," said a male technician. "Why shouldn't I get more consideration than someone who was hired only a couple of years ago?"
I responded by repeating that under the circumstances, we believed only two criteria were relevant: first, that the position be nonessential to the selling process and, second, that it be one that prospective buyers would see as having relatively little value to them in the short term.
The questions kept coming, and for a time the tearful, funereal mood persisted, but eventually other sorts of questions began to surface. Did we really think the division could be sold? Did we think there really was a future for synthetic fuels? Why couldn't Westinghouse wait a little longer? The question period went on for a good 45 minutes and was without doubt one of the most painful I've ever attended. And yet, as it ended, I felt a certain new closeness to those 15 people. I shook hands with each of them and wished them good luck. I thought I sensed that most of them understood, and even respected, what we were trying to do, however much they might object to our final choice of sacrificial lambs.
For weeks the meeting stayed fresh in my mind. We'd hear, for example, that now Nancy's husband had been laid off from his job, and I would remember Nancy sitting at the conference table with tears streaming down her face, and the memory would be so bleak that I'd think, "Why did I insist on meeting with all of them myself? Why didn't I just let their bosses break the news?"
At the same time, however, I was beginning to notice a change I hadn't expected: The remaining employees seemed to have a renewed determination to hold the business together. For example, tests on the pilot plant continued with a new optimism; whenever I was in the test structure, the technicians seemed cheerful, positive, and entirely focused on the task at hand. And at a meeting to discuss the status of another project we wanted to hold onto, not only was the lead engineer still with us-pockets undoubtedly filled with attractive offers from oil companies-but he was explaining his ideas for reducing the project's capital costs.
A couple of months later, we did finally sell the business, and what happened next was even more gratifying. The new owner gave us funds for some additional work, and we suddenly had the chance to rehire about half of the 15 people we'd laid off. Without exception, they accepted our offers to return. One or two even gave up other jobs they'd found in the meantime. One secretary gave up a good position with a very stable and reputable local company to rejoin her friends at our still somewhat risky operation with all its grand dreams.
It gradually became apparent to me that my very painful meeting with those 15 employees had been a kind of turning point for Synthetic Fuels. Clearly, this was due in part to the two messages I sent in that meeting on behalf of senior management-first, that we would do everything in our power to keep the business alive and salable and, second, that we saw layoffs as an extremely regrettable last resort. But as time goes by, I am more and more convinced that the "success" of that meeting was also due in part to the fact that it made me vulnerable to the criticism, disapproval, and anger of the people we were laying off. If that sounds cryptic, let me explain by telling another story, a story I remembered only later, when I began to analyze what had happened at Synthetic Fuels.
In the early 1970s, I worked for the vice president of the Westinghouse Steam Turbine Division, which was located just south of the Philadelphia airport in a sprawling complex of factories that had employed more than 10,000 people during World War II and was still a union stronghold. My boss, Gene Cattabiani, then in his 40s, had a reputation as a good engineer and a "people person." In fact, his success in previous assignments had had much to do with his ability to get along with the people above and below him.
One of the most difficult issues facing Gene at Steam Turbine was an extremely hostile labor relations environment. Back in the 1950s, the Union of Electrical Workers represented the entire hourly workforce. It was a tough, unfriendly union, so much so that the McCarthy hearings had labeled it Communist.
I had seen two faces of this union. On the one hand, its leaders were as stubborn as mules at the negotiating table, and its strikes were daunting. Several men once threatened to throw a small boulder through my windshield when I tried to cross a picket line to get to work. In 1956, the violent, confrontational mood of one nine-month strike led to a shooting death outside the plant.
On the other hand, I had also seen thoughtfulness and warmth. One year when I was chairman of the United Way campaign, we asked the union leaders to serve with me on the organizing committee. It was a very successful campaign, partly because they worked so hard to get the hourly workforce to contribute, though few had ever given in the past.
By and large, however, attitudes were polarized. Most managers viewed shop floor workers as lazy and greedy, a distinct business liability. On their side, most union members viewed management as incompetent, overpaid, and more or less unnecessary.
When Gene took over, the Steam Turbine Division was not particularly profitable. There was a compelling need to cut costs and improve productivity, and it was clear that much of the opportunity for improvement was on the shop floor. Yet the historic animosities between labor and management made it seem unlikely that any fruitful negotiation could take place.
Gene decided it was up to him to break this impasse and begin to change attitudes on both sides by treating union leaders and the workforce with respect, honesty, and openness. To me this made a great deal of sense. If managers began treating union members as human beings, with dignity and worth, they might just respond by treating us the same way.
But it was not just a matter of style. The business was in trouble, and unless the union understood the extent of the problem, it would have little incentive to cooperate. Historically, union leaders had assumed that the business was very profitable. They believed their people deserved a thick slice of what was in their view a large pie. By the time Gene arrived, however, the pie had become pretty skimpy and was threatening to vanish altogether. Gene decided it was essential to inform the union of the real state of the business.
In the past when there was any informing to be done, the labor relations vice president would call a meeting with the union leadership and tell them what he wanted them to know. Not surprisingly, since they saw everything management said as entirely self-serving, union leaders had always viewed these meetings with disdain. This time, however, Gene decided he would do it differently. He would give a presentation on the state of the business to the entire hourly workforce, a thing that had never been done in the long history of the division.
Many of us wondered if this was really necessary. We knew the rank and file saw the vice president and general manager-Gene-as the ultimate enemy. Wouldn't it be easier, we wondered, and maybe more effective, to have someone else make the presentation? Maybe they would listen to the financial manager. But Gene clung- stubbornly, I thought-to his decision.
To reach the entire workforce, Gene would have to repeat the presentation several times to groups of hundreds of workers. The format was a slide presentation, simple but complete and clear, followed by questions from the floor.
The initial presentation was a nightmare. Gene wanted the workforce to see that the business was in trouble, real trouble, and that their jobs depended on a different kind of relationship with management But the workers assumed that management was up to its usual self-serving tricks, and there on stage, for the first time, they had the enemy in person. They heckled him mercilessly all through the slide show. Then, during the question-and-answer period, they shouted abuse and threats. As far as I could tell, they weren't hearing Gene's message-or even listening. I felt sure he had made a mistake in deciding to give the presentation himself.
But Gene persisted. With obvious dread but with grim determination, he made the full series of presentations. While I could see no evidence that people even understood his state-of-the-business message, much less believed it, I did begin to see an important change. When Gene went out on the factory floor for a look around (which his predecessors never did unless they were giving customers a tour), people began to offer a nod of recognition-a radical change from the way they used to spit on the floor as he walked by.
Even more remarkable was his interaction with hecklers. Whenever he spotted one, he would walk over and say something like, "You really gave me a hard time last week," to which the response was usually something like, "Well, you deserved it, trying to pass off all that bull -- !" Such exchanges invariably led to brief but very open dialogues, and I noticed that the lathe operators or blading mechanics he talked to would really listen to what Gene said.
Suddenly, Gene was credible. He had ceased to be an ordinary useless manager and had become a creature of flesh and blood, someone whose opinions had some value. Gene was my boss, and I liked him for his sense of humor, honesty, and warmth. But I knew it had to be more than personality that won him respect in the eyes of that hard-bitten, cynical workforce.
Now, years later, as I thought about those presentations to the hourly workers and about Gene's daily interactions with subordinates and peers as well, I realized that he often set up encounters in such a way that the people he met felt free to complain or argue, even to attack. Gene made himself vulnerable to people, and it was this deliberate vulnerability that seemed to draw people to him. Because he avoided defensiveness and opened himself to criticism, people were much more inclined to believe that the strength and force of his position were not merely contrived and rhetorical but real.
But there was more to it than that. By making the presentations himself, Gene took the heat for his own point of view. Had he let someone else deliver the message, he would have avoided some of the most unpleasant consequences of his position-not the business consequences, which he would have suffered in any case, but the personal consequences, the face-to-face consequences of conveying bad news. People want to confront the source of their difficulties. Gene gave them the chance, and they respected him for it.
From those presentations on, union-management relations Wok a sharp turn for the better, and Gene rapidly built credibility with the workforce. He made important changes in Steam Turbine's work rules and gave individual employees broader, more flexible assignments. He also imposed layoffs, and he raised standards with respect to both throughput and error-free performance. With each change, Gene continued to open himself to arguments, complaints, and anger-all of which gradually diminished as results continued to improve and as Gene's vulnerability and courage continued to disarm opponents.
Combined with many other changes that reached well beyond the factory floor, the division's increased productivity powered Steam Turbine to greatly improved financial performance, and before long Gene became an executive vice president. More important, from my point of view, Gene became a role model for me-more of a role model than I realized at the time. He taught me how important it is to be a flesh-and-blood human being as well as a manager. He taught me that soft qualities like openness, sensitivity, and thoughtful intelligence are at least as critical to management success as harder qualities like charisma, aggressiveness, and always being right- Most important of all in the light of what happened at Synthetic Fuels, he taught me the value of vulnerability and the benefits of taking the beat for your own acts and policies.
What I had done in my meeting with the 15 employees at Synthetic Fuels was to repeat, in a smaller format, Gene's experience at Steam Turbine. As a result, it was a turning point not only for the division but for me as well. I went well beyond anything I had done previously in opening myself to others. On the surface, I was motivated by what I saw as a business need and didn't give much thought to how vulnerable the meeting would make me. Deep down, I think I was also motivated by Gene's example, by an internalized picture of the soft manager succeeding in the face of hard challenges.
Being a soft manager is no job for the fainthearted. On the contrary, it takes a certain courage to be open-minded, well-informed, and responsible, to walk straight into adversity rather than seek to avoid it. Staying open to different possibilities can, of course, lead to vacillation, but it can also lead to tougher, better decisions drawn from among a wider range of choices. The object of soft management is certainly not to be lax or indecisive.
By the same token, whenever I'm tempted to insulate myself from the painful emotional consequences of some business decision, Gene's experience reminds me that it's more productive to listen to objections and complaints, to understand what subordinates are thinking and feeling, to open up to their arguments and their displeasure. It was this kind of vulnerability that made Gene credible to the people whose help he most needed in order to succeed.
Unfortunately, openness and vulnerability are anathema to some people. I've worked with at least two men who found my management style upsetting. Both were supremely bright, self-confident, and articulate, the kind of men who take charge of situations and of other human beings. I'm sure it's very uncomfortable (at an unconscious level, perhaps even frightening) for people who like to feel they're in absolute control of their surroundings to see someone like me stand so close to what they must view as a precipice of indignity and lost authority.
In any case, they didn't like me, and I didn't like them. I believe they saw my vulnerability as exactly what they wanted to be rid of in themselves. I know I saw their exaggerated self-assurance as arrogance and insensitivity-something that I wanted no part of in myself.
My position on soft management comes down to this: Proponents of all management styles will probably agree that to manage other people effectively, a person needs a battery of qualities that are not easily acquired. These include intelligence, energy, confidence, and responsibility. Where I differ from a lot of my colleagues is in believing that candor, sensitivity, and a certain willingness to suffer the painful consequences of unpopular decisions belong on the list. Being vulnerable to the give-and-take of ordinary emotional cross fire and intellectual disagreement makes us more human, credible, and open to change.
The stereotypical leader is a solitary tough guy, never in doubt and immune to criticism. Real leaders break that mold. They invite candid feedback and even admit they don't have all the answers

Human Resources Generalists, Managers, and Directors, depending on the size of the organization, may have overlapping responsibilities. In larger organizations, the Human Resources Generalist, the Manager, and the Director have clearly defined, separated roles with progressively more authority and responsibility in the hands of the Manager, the Director, and ultimately the Vice President.

HR directors, and occasionally HR managers, may head up several different departments that are each led by functional or specialized HR staff such as the training manager, the compensation manager, or an organization development manager.
Human Resources (HR) staff members are advocates for both the company and the people who work in the company. Consequently, a good HR professional performs a constant balancing act to meet both needs successfully.

The Changing HR Role
The role of the HR professional is changing. In the past, HR managers were often viewed as the systematizing, policing arm of executive management. Their role was more closely aligned with personnel and administration functions that were viewed by the organization as paperwork.
When you consider that the initial HR function, in many companies, comes out of the administration or finance department because hiring employees, paying employees, and dealing with benefits were the organization's first HR needs, this is not surprising.
In this role, the HR professional served executive agendas well, but was frequently viewed as a road block by much of the rest of the organization. While some need for this role occasionally remains — you wouldn’t want every manager putting his own spin on a sexual harassment policy, as an example — much of the HR role is transforming itself.

New HR Role
The role of the HR manager must parallel the needs of his or her changing organization. Successful organizations are becoming more adaptable, resilient, quick to change direction, and customer-centered.
Within this environment, the HR professional, who is considered necessary by line managers, is a strategic partner, an employee sponsor or advocate and a change mentor. At the same time, especially the HR Generalist, still has responsibility for employee benefits administration, often payroll, and employee paperwork, especially in the absence of an HR Assistant.
Depending on the size of the organization, the HR manager has responsibility for all of the functions that deal with the needs and activities of the organization's people including these areas of responsibility.

• Recruiting.
• Hiring.
• Training.
• Organization Development.
• Communication.
• Performance Management.
• Coaching.
• Policy Recommendation.
• Salary and Benefits.
• Team Building.
• Employee Relations.
• Leadership.

With all of this in mind, in Human Resource Champions, Dave Ulrich, one of the best thinkers and writers in the HR field today, and a professor at the University of Michigan, recommends three additional roles for the HR manager.

HR Role: Business and Strategic Partner
In today’s organizations, to guarantee their viability and ability to contribute, HR managers need to think of themselves as strategic partners. In this role, the HR person contributes to the development of and the accomplishment of the organization-wide business plan and objectives.
The HR business objectives are established to support the attainment of the overall strategic business plan and objectives. The tactical HR representative is deeply knowledgeable about the design of work systems in which people succeed and contribute. This strategic partnership impacts HR services such as the design of work positions; hiring; reward, recognition and strategic pay; performance development and appraisal systems; career and succession planning; and employee development.
To be successful business partners, the HR staff members have to think like business people, know finance and accounting, and be accountable and responsible for cost reductions and the measurement of all HR programs and processes. It's not enough to ask for a seat at the executive table; HR people will have to prove they have the business savvy necessary to sit there.

HR Role: Employee Advocate
As an employee sponsor or advocate, the HR manager plays an integral role in organizational success via his knowledge about and advocacy of people. This advocacy includes expertise in how to create a work environment in which people will choose to be motivated, contributing, and happy.
Fostering effective methods of goal setting, communication and empowerment through responsibility, builds employee ownership of the organization. The HR professional helps establish the organizational culture and climate in which people have the competency, concern and commitment to serve customers well.
In this role, the HR manager provides employee development opportunities, employee assistance programs, gain sharing and profit-sharing strategies, organization development interventions, due process approaches to problem solving and regularly scheduled communication opportunities.

HR Role: Change Champion
The constant evaluation of the effectiveness of the organization results in the need for the HR professional to frequently champion change. Both knowledge about and the ability to execute successful change strategies make the HR professional exceptionally valued.
Knowing how to link change to the strategic needs of the organization will minimize employee dissatisfaction and resistance to change.
The HR professional contributes to the organization by constantly assessing the effectiveness of the HR function. He also sponsors change in other departments and in work practices. To promote the overall success of his organization, he champions the identification of the organizational mission, vision, values, goals and action plans. Finally, he helps determine the measures that will tell his organization how well it is succeeding in all of this.

From Susan M. Heathfield,

Definition and concept of industrial relations:
Industrial Relations or Labor relations, is an expression used not only for relationships between employers and Trade Unions, but also for those involving Government with the aim of defining policies, facing labour problems.

As Industrial Relations definition we can accept the concept of the outfit of:
1) Rules for employment management;
2) Methods defining those rules;
3) Typology of actors (both employers and workers organisations and representatives, but also State and institutional bodies);
4) Interaction processes between these entities.
Many authors have quoted various definitions of Industrial Relations.

Some of the oft quoted definitions

• “The term Industrial relations explains the relationship between employees and management which stem directly or indirectly from union-employer relationship”– V. Agnihotri.

• “Industrial relations are broadly concerned with bargaining between employers and trade union on wages and other terms of employment. The day-to-day relations within a plant also constitute one of the important elements and impinge on the broader aspects of industrial relations” – C.B Kumar


• “Industrial relation is an art of living together for the purpose of production” – J.Henry

• “The subject of industrial relations deal with certain regulated and institutionalized relationship in industry” – Allan Flanders.


• “The field of industrial relations include the study of workers and their trade unions, management, employers’ association and state institutions concerned with the regulation of employment” – H.A Clegg

Nature of industrial Relations:

Industrial relations are concerned with the organization and practice of multi-pronged relationship between the workers and the union in an industrial enterprise. Such relationships may be either in organized form or unorganized plants.

Industrial relation do not function in a vacuum but multi-dimensional in nature and are conditioned with three determinants (i) Institutional factors (ii) Economic factors (iii) Technological Factors.

(i) Under institutional factors are included items such as state policy, labor laws, voluntary codes, collective agreements, laborers’ unions and employers’ organization, social institution like the community, caste, joint family, creed, system of beliefs, etc, attitudes of work, systems of power status, relative nearness to the centers of power; motivation and influence and industrial relations.

(ii) Under economic factors are included economic organization (socialist, capitalist, communist, individual ownership, company ownership, government ownership) power of labor and employers, the nature and composition of the labor force and the sources of supply and demand in the labor market.


(iii) Under technological factors come the techniques of production, modernization and rationalization schemes, capital structures etc.

The development of industrial relations is not due to any one single factor but rather been largely determined by the conditions existing at the eve of the industrial revolution in the Western Europe, and the social economic and political situation available in different locations.

The changes which took place, since earlier days, did not follow a uniform pattern in different countries but they reflected such economic and social forces which ad long times shaped the principle and practices of the industrial relations in the western countries.

From the earliest phase of industrialization from which the workers formerly working with their own tools entered into power driven factories, owned by owners: to minimization of breakdown due to industrial conflicts of later state and further to industrial peace and hence to human relations approach to raise productivity in an democracy based on labor partnerships not only for sharing the profits but of managerial decisions themselves has been a long journey indeed.

Scope of industrial Relations:

The concept of industrial relation has a very wide meaning and connotation. It means that the employer-employee relationship confines itself to the relationship that emerges out of the day-to-day association of the management and the labor. In its wider sense, industrial relations include the relationship between employers in the course of running an industry and may project it to spheres which may transgress to the areas of quality control, Marketing, price fixation and disposition of profits among others.

An industry is a social world in miniature. Associations of various persons, workmen, supervisory staff, management and employer in industry create industrial relationships. This affects the economic, social and political life of the whole community. Thus, industrial life creates a series of social relationship which regulate the relations and working of not only workmen and management but also of community and industry.

Industrial relations are inherent in an industrial life:

a) Labor relations: Relations between union-management(Also called Labor-management relations)
b) Employer-employee relations: relations between Management and employee
c) Group Relations: Relations between various groups of workmen
d) Community or public relations: Relations between industry and society.

Objectives of Industrial Relations:

Industrial Relations are a bonding between the employee and employer.. So the motto of any industry should be sustaining good relationships between the employer and employee.
Primary objective should be to bring about good and healthy relationship between two partners in the industry. As per Kirkaldy “The state of industrial relations in a country is intimately connected with the form of its political government and the objectives of an industrial organization may change from economic to political ends”

Labor management committees have recognized certain fundamental principles as objectives of social policy in governing industrial relation:

• Good labor management relations depend on employers and trade unions being able to deal with their mutual problems freely, independently and responsibly.
• The trade unions and employers and their organization are desirous of resolving their problems through collective bargaining though in resolving such matters the assistance of appropriate government agencies may be necessary in public interest, collective bargaining, therefore is the corner stone of the good relations and hence the legislative framework of industrial relations should aid the maximum use of their process mutual accommodation.
• The workers and employers organization should be desirous of associating with the government agencies in consideration of the general public, social and economic measures affecting employers and workers relations.