Sabbatical Saga- People Management

Taking time off or unpaid leave is now looked upon as a relief variation to the ongoing layoffs

Key Learnings:

• Layoffs have become more of a norm today, and both the employers and employees are finding the entire process agonising


• Sabbaticals and programmes like unpaid leave offer benefits to both the employer and the employees


• The current economic slow turn has seen an increase in the number of employers opting to offer sabbaticals as opposed to layoffs

According to the website yoursabbatical. com, a sabbatical can be defined as "a planned job pause - paid or unpaid - whereby an individual takes time to rest, travel, volunteer, learn a new skill, or fulfill a lifelong dream before returning to work. Eligibility and benefits will also vary from company to company."

With so many layoffs happening, experts urge more and more organsiations to use sabbaticals as an easier alternative to 'distressing layoffs.'

Carol Sladek, a principal in Hewitt Associates' work/life consulting practice, says, "It's a longer-term solution than just saying, 'OK, today we're in trouble. We need to eliminate jobs.' Sabbatical is a good alternative- especially in an economic downturn."

Why sabbaticals?

Apart from doing away with layoffs, the benefits of offering sabbaticals are many. Employers look at it as one way of retaining their valued employees, re-engaging them, reduced turnover and no re-hiring costs. Despite the downturn, employers are optimistic of better days ahead. And keeping in mind this optimism, employers are in support of sabbaticals.

Sadly, many organisations are still unaware of all the benefits a sabbatical programme has in store. According to Hewitt Associates, 'only 4% of employers offer unpaid sabbaticals'. The primary reason for these dismal figures is the refusal to let go, whether it is leave or the employees. Also, many fear the loss of star performers. Will they ever return back or look for greener pastures?

To state, sabbaticals are an essential part of work/life balance and understandably helpful in the grim economy too. Hiring new set employees is financially precarious as the cost of replacing an employee is almost twice the salary. Given these restraints, employers are opting for unpaid time offs also known as sabbaticals. Sabbaticals initiate and promote 'cross training' amongst the rest of the employees. For instance, replacing the employee who has taken off implies that another employee assumes more responsibility and new learning of the job.

Sharon Klun, director of work/life initiative, Accenture, sabbaticals like the ones at her firm "could be a tool to help get companies through a bumpy economy."

Companies that offer sabbaticals

It is not surprising that most companies that offer sabbaticals have been featured on 'companies we want to work for', 'fortune 500 companies' and the 'best places to work for'.

Accenture has been one of the forerunners in espousing 'sabbaticals' as a great way to rejuvenate, reconnect and retain employees. With already a large number of work/life programmes in its kitty, Accenture came up with sabbaticals or unpaid leave after an employee survey revealed a massive appeal for the same. 'Future Leave' as the sabbatical programme is known at Accenture offers 'time off' that can extend up to three months and can be availed once in every three years.

The upshot of this programme is employees use this time off to learn new things, dedicate time to family, volunteer to help the needy or some even take a trip to the Himalayas. Rejuvenating is the key here. Since, the entire programme is unpaid for, the employees set aside some amount from their salaries every month. Once they have sufficient amount to fund their 'sabbatical' they take time off. The employees are enthusiastic about funding their sabbaticals. In addition to this, Accenture conducts 'personal engagement surveys' to comprehend how well these initiatives work in ensuring a fair and commendable existence.

At Deloitte, sabbaticals can be extended up to five years and during the unpaid leave period the employees have access to mentoring, small work projects and training at low costs. This is to ensure that the employees are not completely detached from the organisation. They believe that with these initiatives the "highly valued individuals, can re-enter the workforce and we would be at the top of their list to get them back, rather than leave the firm, get disconnected and not come back."

Sabbaticals, what it offers the employer and the employees'?

Let us list in short the benefits of a sabbatical to the organsiations:

• Talent pool: Since the high performing employees stay on the payroll, the organisation retains talent, knowledge, expertise and also cuts re-hiring costs.


• Attracts future talent: Organsiations with work/life balance initiatives are almost on every talented individual's wish list. Thus it helps in attracting potential talent.


• Fulfilled workforce: The entire workforce is happy with such initiatives and the cross training involved is a learning process for employees.


• Since it is seen as an alternate to layoffs employees, future employees and clients are happy. The repute of such organsiations are higher especially during tough times.


• An encouraging workplace attracts and retains talents, commands greater credibility amongst clients and stakeholders and is seen as a whiff of fresh air in the market.

Sabbaticals for the employees:

Helps them rediscover themselves , relearn and paves way for deeper introspection

With this kind of awareness and refreshment, employees are better equipped mentally and physically to take on challenges at work once they resume work.

With sabbaticals, the commitment and loyalty of the employees towards the organsiations are deepened

The benefits of a sabbatical are manifold, from new passion for work, better creativity, and most importantly higher commitment of the workforce. Taking a sabbatical needn't be treated with trepidation; it is just another way to learn.

Kathie Lingle, Director of a global human resources association sums up the response to pressurising work environments as "Smart organisations are looking at how to keep people whole and sane with them."

Sabbaticals maybe the answer!

Reference: TheManageMentor.

Are Talent Leaders Only Using Half Their Resources?

Peter Weddle, CEO of HR and employment specialty publisher Weddle's LLC, said American workers - including talent managers - are struggling to achieve career success with half their brains tied behind their backs.

"Career success begins with a good understanding of who we are as individuals. Our characteristics, believes, principles, values, all of that you have to know before you can figure out what you're passionate about. The problem is that information doesn't come to us intuitively," Weddle explained. "We have to work at understanding what that unique person inside us is all about."

He said the challenge is that every person/worker has a preferred way of thinking about thinking about things. Creative people rely more on the right hemisphere of the brain and seldom use the left. Analytical people rely on the left hemisphere and seldom use the right. Thus, we end up only using half of our inherent talents.

His book, Recognizing Richard Rabbit: A Fable About Being True to Yourself, attempts to make it easier for the average worker to find out who he or she is, what he or she is trying to become and how to tap into inherent talents. Encouraging the reader to use creative energy to try and answer those questions, the book also offers a self-interview to explore the analytical side of the brain and reason through questions that may reveal what a person values, believes in and hopes to leave behind as a legacy at work.

Some of the questions include: Does the significance of doing something truly different influence how you feel about it? Are you affected by what you will have to accomplish in order to make a difficult change in your life? And can you really change the circumstances that affect your day?

The book's premise is based on research done by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi for his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Weddle said during the course of his research, which involved thousands of interviews with high- and low-profile workers, Csikszentmihalyi found that no matter what workers did or how long they'd been doing it, people often had optimal experiences when they were confronted with a meaningful challenge and then stretched to their limits and beyond to meet that challenge or accomplish a goal.

"The single greatest milieu in which that kind of goal stretching occurs is at work," Weddle said. "Recognize yourself in both dimensions of your life. Of course you want to be authentic in your personal or social relationships. You want to be authentic with your family and friends. If you do that, you experience an emotional state called joy. That's only half the story. If you're equally authentic and passionate about who you are, and you bring that person to work, you will experience a cognitive state called happiness.

"The bottom line is, be joyful, but be happy too. Don't forget that work is just as great an opportunity to express your own true self as the rest of your life is. HR people talk about work-life balance as if work has to be balanced with all the good things that happen in life. That's true, but it's also important to balance your life with all the good things that can happen at work.

"The fundamentals of our economy may be in trouble, but the fundamentals of our character are not," Weddle said. "This is the very moment when working strong is just as important as living strong. If you can do that in this environment, you can do that anytime. And that will serve you well for the rest of your working life."

[About the Author: Kellye Whitney is managing editor for Talent Management magazine.]

Attracting Top Talent: Do You Have What It Takes?

Today's employees are attracted by a hiring package with both extrinsic (pay and benefits) and intrinsic (motivation, training opportunities, etc.) elements. But does your organization have the right mix?

There's really only one way to find out: Ask them. Hold focus groups or distribute questionnaires to your employees with the purpose of determining what they think of your present pay and benefits program and also the work environment. Which benefits do they rate the highest? Which are least important to them? What do they find most and least desirable about their jobs and the workplace?

Studies have been done by numerous compensation organizations and they have identified the following as the most important benefits:

• RRSP or other matched employee retirement plans
• Dental plan
• Pension plan
• Pay for performance compensation
• Flexible working hours
• Childcare
• Tuition reimbursement

Ideally, say the experts, you should be offering each of these. But if you can't offer them all, determine which you should be offering based upon your employee focus groups and survey findings.

Likewise, examine employees' opinions about their jobs and the workplace. The ideal company offers:

• Job security
• Employee participation in decision-making
• Work/family balance
• Increased employability through training and development opportunities

Of the elements above, which are missing in your organization? If they aren't there, they should be. Whereas the elements in your benefits package most important to your workforce will vary with the nature of the group (e.g., younger employees will be interested in childcare or tuition reimbursement, or funds to finance a new home), all, regardless of their place in their careers, want job security, involvement in decision-making, training opportunities, and time to enjoy their families along with their jobs.

Once you have retooled your package to attract those employees your firm needs, your next step is to determine how to market your revised package. If you have a website, and you are looking for technical people, make sure that you advertise on it. Visit the websites of competitive firms to determine how they use their site to prospect for job candidates. Job search sites should be part of your marketing plans, of course. But you shouldn't limit yourself to them. Don't forget newspaper classifieds.

Classifieds aren't as effective as they once were, especially if you are recruiting from among those who are still employed. But you can increase their usefulness if you highlight in the ad what candidates would find most attractive about the job (e.g., good pay, great benefits, childcare, and employability). Actually, you should do this in all ads you run.

Here's another avenue for marketing your job openings: direct mail.

Send out mailings to those individuals who match the profile of recruits you want. Associations or magazines targeted to your industry or the necessary discipline can provide the mailing list and names of candidates with the general background you want.This provides a new avenue for the top talent you want.

Ref: http://www.hr.com

One-in-Five Workers Plan to Change Jobs in 2009

Even with slower hiring predicted for 2009, 19 percent of workers say finding a new job is on their list and the same amount say they actually plan to leave their current job before the end of the year, according to CareerBuilder.com's latest survey. The survey, titled "2009 Job Forecast," was conducted from November 12 through December 1, 2008, and included more than 8,800 workers. Additionally, six-in-ten workers say the economy and the tightening job market are not making them hold off on their plans to change jobs.

Workers cited a variety of reasons for wanting to leave their jobs in the new year, with the most workers, 49 percent, reporting that better pay and/or career advancement opportunities are the primary reasons they plan to leave their current positions. Fourteen percent are looking for an environment where they feel more appreciated and 10 percent want to work for a company that is making a difference. Seven percent of workers are electing to change careers entirely, while 3 percent say they are leaving their jobs because they want more flexibility or plan to go back to school.

Looking at key factors that influence job satisfaction and company loyalty, workers reported the following:

Pay – A quarter of workers are dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with their pay. Thirty-five percent of workers did not receive a raise in 2008. Of those that did receive one, 25 percent were given an increase of 2 percent or less. Sixty-three percent of workers did not receive a bonus.
Career Advancement – Twenty-six percent of workers are dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the career advancement opportunities provided by their current employers. Eighty percent did not ask for or receive a promotion in 2008 and 20 percent felt they were overlooked.
Work/Life Balance – Eighteen percent of workers are dissatisfied with work/life balance and 54 percent report their workloads have increased over the last six months.
Training/Learning – Twenty-three percent of workers are dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with training and learning opportunities provided by their current employers.

When applying for new positions, workers say the most important attributes they look for in employers are:

• Company's stability and longevity in the market (32 percent)
• Good career advancement opportunities (20 percent)
• Good work culture (14 percent)
• Ability to offer flexible schedules (12 percent)
  

"January is typically one of the busiest job search months of the year and this year should be no exception with increased unemployment combined with workers who are putting their New Year's resolutions into action," said Rosemary Haefner, Vice President of Human Resources at CareerBuilder.com. "Although seven-in-ten workers say they are satisfied with their jobs, some are always on the lookout for a greener pastures. In fact, 82 percent of workers said while they are not actively looking for a new position, they would be open to one if they came across the right opportunity."

For those actively searching for new opportunities in the new year, Haefner recommends the following:

1) Be patient – More than one-in-five employers (20 percent) report it typically takes them two months or longer to fill their open positions. In addition, companies are receiving more resumes for each of their open positions, requiring more time to make sure they hire the best candidate for the job. Job seekers need to be aware of these time frames when performing their search.
2) Use the job posting – Job postings clearly spell out what employers are looking for. Update your resume using some of the same key words and phrases directly from the job posting. If the employer is using an automated system to scan resumes, your updated resume will surely stand out.
3) Get online now! – While nearly three-in-ten (28 percent) of employers say their recruitment budgets will decrease for 2009, 19 percent report they plan to spend more of their money looking for talent on online recruitment sites. Explore generalist sites, niche boards and local job boards, and post your resume on as many as you feel could benefit your search. Also, take advantage of the functions on each site to boost your exposure.


Ref: hr.com

Organisational Behaviour - Acting on signs of misconduct

Scandals, scandals and more scandals everywhere! This has become a common phenomenon in the corporate world. The most famous of companies have not been left behind in this mess. As if being rated so is an honour in the industry!

The recent spate of corporate wrongdoings in the news reveals the misconduct of well-known organisations. Business publications, however, had reported such happenings even decades ago.
Well, yes! Decades ago. Ironically, nothing has been done to stop such unethical activities. Reasons are countless.

Bob Gandossy, a Global Practice Leader at Hewitt Associates and an expert in organisational behaviour and effectiveness, says, "As we have seen in the aftermath of such scandals, signs of trouble are typically present but simply missed by the people involved."

School of thought

The Buddhist school's thought on human suffering is truly applicable to organisations. In the corporate world, there is misconduct, there are causes for such misconduct and factors that prevent people from seeing and acting on those signs of misconduct. However, there are also steps to reduce the likelihood of misconduct.

Great companies need the foresight and forethought to curb the "evil" lurking in their organisations. Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a business advisor and professor at Harvard Business School avers, " We should look closely at the corporate wrongdoing for lessons about how to get the best out of people by preventing the worst. Corporate crime anchors one end of a continuum of performance problems."

Being blind to the applicability of such unlawful activities can be disastrous. The ability to detect corporate crime is directly proportional to organisational performance. For instance, crimes committed by the production manager, who overlooks substandard products being shipped, or a loan officer crediting loans to an individual with suspicious financial records. Such fraud, as Kanter says, not only blinds but paralyses performance.

Contributors to misconduct

Basically, three conditions lead to corporate misbehaviour. These can teach corporate biggies, some real big lessons.

Short is not always smart...

First and foremost, rewards for short-term performance. " If salaries, bonuses and promotions are tied to quarterly profits, it's difficult for managers to stop practices that affect their bottom line performances," says Gandossy. Management is highly pressurised when reward systems act as performance triggers.

Short-term performances must be rewarded but not at the cost of neglecting long-term business success. Undoubtedly short-term payouts motivate employees. Organisations must thus review their executive compensation practices, says, Hewitt's Executive Compensation Practice Leader, Michael Powers. The practice of integrating a balanced pay programme with long term performance and retention features would be ideal.

Benchmarking or setting standards is crucial for efficient measurement of performance. Standards must not be set towards the extreme ends. The compensation committee should benchmark pay against the 50th percentile of a reference group.

Too many but not any...

Secondly, increased complexity in today's business with a number of organisations contributing towards one transaction obscures inadequate performance and scams. All vendors are segmented on the basis of their roles and responsibilities. The emphasis is more on miniscule points, than on the bigger picture. Only during tough times do companies explore reasons for poor quality products or misconduct. That is the time when organisations and vendors shift the responsibility for errors committed and play innocent.

"Organisations that come together for a particular project, joint venture, or a series of transactions generally have very specific, often narrow concerns", Gandossy says. To avoid such misconduct, he suggests that the vendors be treated as an integral part of the organisation and not as separate entities. They must be communicated of the behaviour expected of them. An expert employee must, however, supervise the flow of active communication whether upward, downward or horizontal.

Kendell Sherrer, Vice President of Benefits and HRIS at Cardinal Health says, "Forging trust-based relationships with service providers does require extra effort, but pays off by ensuring shared values among the companies."

Agreeing on mutually shared objectives promotes mutual trust, which pays off by certifying shared value systems both among employees and vendors. Also top management must keep their employees informed of the need to employ service providers. Clarity in communication is always a saviour during tough times.

Up.. Up..And away!

Ignoring details and lack of accountability leads to poor performance. Higher aims and greater attention to detail prevent misconduct and inefficiency. Employees notice even subtle conflicts between professional and personal values and this might lead to diminished moral standards. Therefore, the differential perceptual threshold must be negligible when organisational and individual values are compared. Hewitt's Values Alignment Study helps companies and employees identify integrated values of the company and values that need to be focused upon.

Playing Good Samaritan

A sure shot recipe to reduce an organisation's misconduct is to provide employees balanced rewards. These encourage intelligent mistakes and sharing responsibilities. However, certain other methods that reduce susceptibility to misconduct could prevent instances of misbehaviour.
Ethical code It's not enough to have an ethical code it must be disseminated to all employees. Applying key ethical values reduces the pressure on employees to compromise ethical standards and resort to misconduct.

Audit Auditing business practices helps determine the sensitive areas of companies and prevents them from falling prey to misconduct.

Communicate Communication of business practices, both acceptable and unacceptable encourages good conduct.

Tie-up Employees who are pressurised to compromise ethical standards observe more misconduct at work. To avoid this, good conduct must be linked to performance appraisals. Therefore, employees must always be encouraged to resolve ethical dilemmas.

Balance Balanced benchmarking and balanced reward systems provide appropriate payoffs to the employees and the organisation as a whole.

Action A stitch in time saves nine is apt to this context. Acting swiftly on any reporting of misconduct will save time and resources.

Therefore...

Perception of values that influence conduct seldom differs across organisations. Definitely a high percentage of observed misbehaviour in organisations signals problems. A lower percentage on the other hand must not be mistaken for absence of misconduct altogether. It is therefore highly essential to carefully evaluate the circumstances.

The “Uncommon” Balance!

The issue of work-life balance gets a whiff of fresh perspective… .....

Key learnings:

• Work-life imbalance can lead to high employee turnover, high employee-burnout and low employee productivity
• Work-life balance can be attained through an integrated solution where programme quality, culture and individual responsibility complement each other.

Work-life balance is not as much about the “balance” as it is about the “imbalance”. Corporate burnout rate is rising at an alarming rate with employees feeling the pain more than ever before. Organisations are turning increasingly to wellness programmes and other such work-life balancing strategies, but are left wanting for more. Corporate psychologists believe that while organisations are putting in a great deal of effort to establish a fair balance between work and life, it is not enough. Analysing the issue of work-life balance and identifying the problems and possible solutions requires one to first search in the right place. While most believe that majority work-life issues can be sorted out focusing on the individual, experts believe that in reality it is the organisation and its approach to work-life balance that needs fine- tuning. Statistics indicating the plight of employees caught in an imbalanced work-life equation reveal some eye-popping facts. These include:

• Employees under stress result in huge corporate spending by way of wellness programmes and counselling. The impact on corporate spending is almost fifty percent higher than in the case of employees who work in relatively relaxed conditions
• Work-life imbalance is one of the most dominant reasons for ailments like heart attacks, depression, cancer and migraine. Hence, health benefits costs too rise considerably.
• Workers who often take a break from work because of stress and pressure are more likely to leave the job as compared to their colleagues. In addition these workers begin to show a rather dismal attendance pattern with time.

The aforementioned findings reveal that work-life balance is as much about the role of the organisation as it is about the individual. Hence, to attain the right balance organisations need to focus both on the individual and the approach the organisation takes to tackle issues of work-life balance.

In addition, study on the subject has revealed that for best results there has to be coordination between three pillars of work-life balance. These include: organisational initiatives and programmes, corporate culture to support the initiatives and the role of the individual. These three factors play a critical role in determining the success of corporate work-life initiatives.

Building strength

Programmes and initiatives To begin with every work-life initiative should be screened first at the programmatic level. Organisations that pursue seriously the cause of work-life balance ideally have a series of programmes and initiatives catering to employee needs. These programmes help organisations channelise their energies in the right way, thereby lowering work-related stress and discomfort. The following is a programme menu that depicts the type of programmes that should be included in the work -life effort of every organisation:

• Employee assistance programmes or EAPs that aim to provide employees with emotional and professional support in stressful times
• Flexi time initiatives that allow employees to work long hours and take an extra day off in lieu of the extra hours
• Day care centres and other children-friendly arrangements like an on-campus crèche
• On-campus gymnasium and yoga classes that help employees unwind

Experts believe that programmes such as these work better as they are more precise and user-friendly. Interventions that discourage employees from working overtime in the name of work-life balance do not work well. For, employees finally end up taking extra work home without really getting rewarded for it.

Cultural sculpting Work-life initiatives like other initiatives can fail if corporate culture does not support them. By a supportive culture we mean the involvement of the CEO and other top management executives. Senior executives must demonstrate in their actions their concern for employee needs and the significance of work-life balance. Mere lip service may not yield the desired results. When leaders say that employees should not over- stress themselves and also pile up work for them then the whole campaign begins to look like a farce. Thus, support from senior management by way of practising ideas that reflect concern for work-life balance is important for the success of work-life programmes.

Individual responsibility Work-life initiatives may fail to show the desired results in spite of an effective programme and a supportive culture . This experts say is because of lack of individual responsibility and accountability towards maintaining the desired balance. Employers can only provide the necessary benefits, but the option of using them lies with the individual. For instance, the employer may give an individual personal time –off from work , but if the employee chooses to catch up with work deadlines in that time then the responsibility of a tilted balance lies completely with the individual. Hence, individual responsibility plays a major part in creating a successful work-life balance.

Work-life balance is an essential aspect of a successful professional life and a satisfying personal life. Either one is incomplete without the other. Hence, organisations should strive towards attaining this balance and educate employees about their role in achieving the same. An integrated solution that blends programme quality, culture and individual accountability is thus the only way forward for success with work-life initiatives.

Ref: TheManageMentor

Aligning Human Resources and Business

Attracting the best and brightest employees, developing them and retaining them is a challenge for any organization. The role of the Human Resources function has changed dramatically over the past few decades and will become increasingly more strategic in nature in the future. With the changing landscape of Human Resources management in the years to come, strategic planning will be the key for HR to meet those needs and to succeed.

It seems that finally CEO’s are willing to give HR Managers a significant role in strategic decisions. To gain a stake as “Strategic Partners”, HR professionals should focus on two major issues- Return & Growth. Hr professionals can create economic value from these sources:

Employee turnover and retention
Revenue Vs Employee Costs
Expenditure on the HR function and related activities

These three factors relate to three important HR goals:

Attracting, developing and retaining staff
Aligning, engaging, measuring and rewarding performance
Controlling or reducing HR costs

HR related measures for growth needs to be handled with care and should be tailored to the organizations' goals. HR measures should be devised keeping in mind increase in performance & profitability. Following can be attributed as growth related HR measures:

Leadership Development
Increased employee engagement
Diversity in work force
Work-Life balance