Imagine a massive cargo ship, the Maersk Eagerness, caught in a frantic race against the clock. The crew scrambles to load and unload containers at breakneck speed, chasing ever-increasing throughput targets. But their relentless pursuit of speed backfires spectacularly. As containers pile up on the docks, bottlenecks form, grinding operations to a halt. The culprit? Flawed performance metrics, focused solely on speed and ignoring the ripple effects on the entire system. This cautionary tale highlights the shortcomings of traditional performance measurement. Often rooted in intuition and gut f ..read more

HCLTech has sparked debate by mandating employees report to the office three days a week, effective February 19. Failure to comply will incur disciplinary action, according to an internal email from Vikas Sharma, global head of people function for Digital Foundation Services. This move follows similar directives from IT giants TCS and Wipro, prompting discussions on work culture, security, and employee well-being in the post-pandemic era. The announcement echoes wider industry trends. TCS has granted employees a deadline of March end to return to office, citing concerns about cyber security an ..read more

In an endeavour to ensure that staff members are aware of what is expected of them, Air India has decided to state job descriptions with clarity and also lay out specific goals for its workforce. It is doing so with the help of a new performance-management system for the non-flying employees. This is part of the Tata Group’s attempts at reviving the national carrier, and in the process, bring about more transparency and fairness in the appraisal system. This digitised performance-management process, under the Rise.AI project of the carrier, will clearly convey what the employees are expected t ..read more

There has been a lot of talk around human resources (HR) as a strategic business function in the organisation. That is why, Dave Urich’s HR model introduced the strategic HR business partner (HRBP) role, which has come to be an integral part of organisational design across sectors in India. Being a strategic partner, the HR business partner or HRBP is also responsible for the performance of the business function that it is partnering with. Most of the HR leaders agree that the performance of the function that an HR business partner is assigned to is integrated with the key performance indicato ..read more

Polycab, the Indian wire and cable manufacturing company, has done away with the rating part of the performance management system, reveals Rajesh Nair, EVP & CHRO, Polycab India, to HRKatha. It all started with the management team at Polycab realising that there were too many flaws with the rating system, and that it was high time they did away with it. The feedback from the management was that it was stressful to rate people and assign them numbers. In fact, after the exercise, many employees who were rated badly questioned the managers about their ratings or approached them with requests ..read more

Global giants from GE to 3M or even Indian multinationals such as the Tata Group and the Aditya Birla Group stick to traditional rating systems when it comes to their employees’ performance reviews. Most businesses either rate their employees’ performance on a scale of five or they follow the bell curve system, where 10 per cent of the employees are categorised as ‘high performers’, 80 per cent make up the ‘average performers’ and the remaining are termed as ‘low performers’. However, Trimble, an American software, hardware and services technology company, chooses to follow a totally different ..read more

A Bloomberg report claims that an employee who spent four years delivering packages for Amazon, as a contract driver in Phoenix, suddenly got axed. It wasn’t the sacking that was sudden but the process. The driver received an automated e-mail informing him that his services had been terminated. A bot had fired a human! For Amazon, this may be quite acceptable given that Jeff Bezos, chief executive officer, Amazon, believes that machines make more accurate decisions than humans because they are devoid of bias. However, what could be a reason for alarm is the dependency on tech to carry out key ..read more

In the pre-COVID era, the expectations from managers were very different. The organisations primarily expected them to deliver and meet the organisational goals, make every team member productive and keep them engaged. On the other hand, the employees expected their managers to be supportive, recognise good work, motivate them and act as guides. However, in the post pandemic era, especially during the second wave this year, employees needed someone who could understand them and help them survive the situation. That is where the role of managers also changed. Managers and team leaders were requ ..read more

When the pandemic struck last year, and people were forced to work remotely, most of us thought it would be a blessing in disguise. However, after having worked from home for over a year now, the belief has been slightly shaken. All those who rejoiced that the time spent on office commute could be saved and spent on family and hobbies are now realising how wrong they were. Worse still, their bedrooms and living rooms have been turned into permanent places of work! The office environment is meant for people to spend time working, on a set agenda. The workplace is controlled and owned by the emp ..read more

The world of work has changed since March 2020, and in the last 14 months, people have adapted to remote working or hybrid working in their own way. The adaptability quotient has not been the same for all. Every generation of employees is facing their share of problems, each different from the other. These problems are difficult for other generations to understand or comprehend. Sriharsha Achar “This generation has been used to sitting in their cabins and people coming and meeting them. They felt the power and control in their hands, but now with work from home, there is a feeling of loss of c ..read more