MBA in HR: Best B-Schools in India

MBA in HR deals with different aspects of human resources related work in an organization (do not misinterpret it as being merely related only with recruitment) and does require an extensive range of knowledge in diverse disciplines. Roles of HR have been described crisply by Jack Welch, Former CEO, General Electric in one of his addresses – “The best HR people are a kind of hybrid: one part pastor, who hears all sins and complaints without recrimination; and other part parent, who loves and nurtures, but gives it to you fast and straight when you are off track.”

What you learn doing MBA in HR?

During 2 years at B-School while pursuing MBA in HR, you will cover almost every aspect human resource management that has direct or indirect impact on the work force as well as strategic initiatives of an organization. Few of the major subjects in the curriculum of the specialization include Business Communiation, Human Resource Planning, Industrial Relations and Labour Laws, Total QualityManagemet, Employee Relations, Training and Development, Human Resource Management etc.

Selecting a B-School is not less than a strategic decision when it comes to career. While the list of colleges that offer MBA in HR might be endless just like Marketing and Finance, one should go for only those colleges which are known for specialized HR courses to get the right platform to launch the career.Difference in these colleges can also be realized by measuring against parameters like recognition of the course, the brand name of college, past placement record, visiting companies, faculty, course structure, teaching methodology etc. It is very critical to have right blend of information about the college and its performance when it comes to HR before accepting the final offer made by respective college.

Colleges known for MBA in HR

To facilitate the students to take correct decision, we bring to you a comprehensive list of top Management Institutes of the country which offer MBA in HR.

Here we go!!

Tier 1

• Xavier Labour Research Institute (XLRI), Jamshedpur
• Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai
• Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource Development (SCMHRD), Pune

Tier 2

• Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon
• Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (SIBM), Pune
• Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Lucknow)

Tier 3

• International Management Institute (IMI), Delhi
• Xavier Institute of Management (XIMB), Bhubaneshwar

The Path Ahead

It is believed that if you wish to play a role that is integrated part of the organization and involves being extensively linked with other departments and functions, a career in HR is meant for you.

This is one of the career paths that has quite a few myths being popular about it as a career option. You might hear people saying that HR is just a cost centre and plays no role in the growth of the organization. However, it does not stand true in today’s corporate arena as there are plenty of resources to be managed and the initiatives taken by HR teams do have a strategic value as well and often helps in improving productivity of the organization.

Some of the most common profiles offered at B-Schools reputed for MBA in HR include HR Generalist, HR Specialist, HR Consulting, Employee Relations, Personnel Management, Industrial Relations, Recruitment, Training and Development, Account HR etc. (Read more: All you need to know about HR as a specialization )

With this, we come to the end of this article. Stay tuned for more articles on various Career Opportunities. Also, please feel free to put forth in the comments what you would want to know about HR as a career and we would come up with articles covering those aspects as well.

Cheers!

Disclaimer: List of colleges is not in any ranking order. Colleges have been just grouped among tiers and there is no ranking provided within a tier. Placement of a particular B-School in a specific tier is only valid for HR and might change for other specializations.

Related: 

1) MBA in Finance: Best B-Schools in India, 

2) MBA in Marketing: Best B-Schools in India,

3) MBA in SCM/Operations: Best B-Schools in India

If you liked the article and want us to continue writing such articles, click on the like button at the left to share the article with your friends.

LATENT IMPORTANCE OF EMPLOYER BRANDING IN HRM

by 

Shivang Ganatra, 

IIM Ranchi

Jerry: “I aspire to get placed at XYZ Company. I would do anything to be there!”

Tom: “Why? What is so special about XYZ?”

Jerry: “Don’t you know? They have a wonderful workplace ambience. You can choose your cabin. Have fun in your work area. There are sofas to sit even in the smallest of cabins and you can sleep whenever you want to. You have just 5 working days in a week. They provide you commutation facilities and food. If you don’t feel like working you can do your own work in the office as well for some time. They have awesome pay structure and most importantly you get to flaunt that you are working with ‘XYZ’!!”

So has someone finally managed to trap Jerry into something that seems to be too good to be true? Is Jerry going to have a ‘gala’ time at XYZ eating cheese throughout the day? Well that is what seems to be the case right now. However everyone knows that no company will hire someone just to provide him/her with all the luxuries of life without getting the work done from them.

So why all this excitement among job-seekers to get the opportunity to work for a few selected organisations? The answer is – EMPLOYER BRANDING.

image:freedigitalphotos.net

I am sure there would be many other companies which would be providing at least some of the aforesaid facilities. But the question here is how many of those companies can we name when asked out of the blue. Here comes the role of Employer Branding.

WHAT IS EMPLOYER BRANDING?

Employer Branding is the approach adopted by organisations to let the public in general and prospective employees in particular know about the culture and practices followed in the organisation. It is the sum total of all the efforts that an organisation makes to develop its image as seen through the eyes of its associates and potential hires.

Employer Branding in its holistic approach involves managing both the internal as well as the external stakeholders. The internal stakeholders would essentially be the current employees and the external stakeholders would majorly include the potential employees of the organisation.

SCOPE OF EMPLOYER BRANDING

There are various ways in which an organisation can brand itself. Many of the times organisations do resort to a few of these unknowingly as well. This is because almost all the activities that an organisation carries out has an impact on the perceptions people have about it.

However for a conscious employer who wishes to ‘brand’ itself in its desired way, following are the avenues to do so.

Recruitment: Employer’s can brand very effectively during the recruitment process. This is mainly because this is one time when an organisation reaches out to a large pool of prospective employees. The company can brand by giving out apt recruitment advertisements and adopting recruitment practices that it may feel brands itself in the best possible way.

An employer may show youth playing in the cafeteria in its recruitment advertisement if it wants to promote ‘fun @ work’ culture.

Selection: Even while selecting employees, subtle hints about the work culture and the processes in an organisation can be let out. When any person comes to an organisation to give an interview, he consciously or unconsciously forms an image about the company. Care should be taken that any potential employee is treated courteously by all the touch-points in the organisation. This is all the more important because perceptions and opinions are formed by these very small experiences that candidates have with the organisation.

It is also a good idea to courteously call and keep in loop even those candidates who do not get selected for any job role in the organisation. There have been instances when candidates have been impressed by the treatment given to them and they speak highly of an organisation even though they were not selected.

Training & Development: The scope of branding during training and development is majorly internal to the organisation. The current employees have a certain level of expectations from their employer. When proper training and development opportunities are provided to them, they think highly of the organisation. This results in a satisfied employee base which eventually spreads around the good word about their organisation.

Compensation & Benefits: Though this component seems to be a narrow one in the scope of branding, it is a very effective one. Most of the aspirers rate their overall compensation as one of the most important parameter in selecting an organisation. Few companies have been branded as very good paymasters as they have persistently worked towards developing such image.

A few innovations in the compensation structure can also help an organisation in building a unique brand for itself. Infosys was the first company in India to introduce ESOPs in the pay structure of its employees. It is till today remembered and revered for this initiative.

Performance Management: This is an aspect which is gaining prominence in branding as the new generation of employees are all the more concerned about enhancing their performance. Many high-achievers prefer an organisation where performance is valued over the organisations where it is given relatively less importance. The trick here is to establish and develop systems which are transparent and which encourage the overall improvement in the performance of an employee.

Work Culture: A very highly rated parameter in the candidates’ preference criteria for an organisation. This has to be developed over time. Some companies have earned a name for themselves with the highly unique and effective work culture that they have developed over a period of time. This again leads to highly satisfied employees who spread the positivity and vibrancy of the culture to other people.

INTERNSHIPS:

A novel idea to create a positive image in the minds of the prospective employees is to communicate your brand values to them during internships. Internships are opportunities not only for the employees but also for the organisations to portray a good image about the company. These days, employees/ students coming for internships are highly networked. This can be used as a platform to promote your organisation as ‘the place to be’. Any experience, good or bad, will have far reaching effects in the job market.

BRIDGING THE GAP:

HR Branding is not all about letting the external parties know about the organisation. It also includes selling your organisation to the current employees of the company. When employees enter your organisation, they would have certain expectations in their minds about the environment, culture, processes and people at the workplace. If these expectations are not handled properly, resentment may arise among the employees.

What we talked about in the initial part of the article was essentially about creating the right expectation set among the potential employees. What we are looking at right now is to handle the expectation set among the current employees. Firstly their expectations have to be figured out and it should be checked whether some general expectations of the employees can be met with. If the expectations are not possible to be fulfilled by the organisation, proper shaping of their needs and expectations should be carried out by the management.

Training and development initiatives and OD activities can help in bringing about change in people’s mindsets.

A study conducted by The Economic Times and ‘www.greatplacetowork.in’ lists out the following companies as the top 10 India’s Best Companies to Work for 2012:

1. Google India
2. Intel Technology
3. NTPC
4. MakeMyTrip
5. Forbes Marshall
6. American Express
7. Mariott Hotels
8. Intuit Technology
9. Qualcomm India
10. NIIT

In each of the above mentioned companies you will find something unique which promotes the organisation. These companies have mastered the art of staying on top of the minds of the prospective employees by adopting the right practices.

Employer branding activities may seem too expensive and irrelevant at times. But they have a very long term effect on how the organisation is perceived as a whole in the society. It aids in generating the goodwill and recognition in the job market and helps in acquiring and retaining the right kind of talent in the company.

The article has been authored by Shivang Ganatra, IIM Ranchi

References: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/best_company_2012.cms

SAFETY OF WOMEN EMPLOYEES - A BIG QUESTION MARK

by 

Payal Anand,

IIM Indore

According to a survey done by ASSOCHAM, working women are not comfortable & want to get back home after sunset as they have fear of some catastrophe to happen. The survey reports that the efficiency of women employees has been fallen by 40 percent due to the fear factor. The Delhi-NCR region has approximately 2500 IT and BPO companies which employ lakhs of women.

It’s not just about the impact of a barbarous rape on the female employees but the question arises on their safety in and outside the organization. Who should be answerable to these incidents and specially in the country where female employees are almost equally contributing to the economy as their male counterparts.

Image Courtesy: freedigitalphotos.net

Infact, the scenario is getting worse day by day where cases of sexual harassment are increasing in numbers. These cases come from within the organization where females are getting misbehaved, exploited, harassed or used for official or unofficial purposes. Not even in corporate, such cases are also emerging in premier educational institutes of the country. A recent case has been found in the country’s one of the renowned management institute where a female faculty has raised sexual harassment blame on her colleague faculty and the issue is becoming one of the hot topics among students and others faculty members. The male faculty is working in the institute for more than 4 years, is one of the popular and respected professors among the students. Though a gender sensitivity team has been established on urgent basis by the institute management still its awful to have these incidents in educational institutes.

In the words of MacKannon,” Sexual harassment may contribute to an undetermined extent to many aspects of women emplyoement experience,including absenteeism,turnover,productivity rates and work motivation,job dissatisfaction and unemployement”. While our society often provides us the proofs of unequal power relationships but they tend to appear the most in the workplace, where hierarchies are common. In the current scenario,women are participating in the workplaces at the fastest pace. Though,both women and men may experience sexual harassment in employment, but women tend to be more vulnerable to harassment by men, because relative to men, more women hold lower-paying, lower-authority and lower-status jobs. However, there are over 20 constitutional provisions laid down for sexual harassment, 70 per cent of women are not aware of them even in the Capital City Delhi, according to a survey brought out by the ASSOCHAM Women Development Foundation.The women safety in organization should be taken seriously and some guidelines should be made which is ought to be standardized by each and every organization. Atleast this step could help in uplifting the morale of women employees and can build their image infront of other employess in the organisation.

However,the barbarous rape and subsequent death of a 23-year-old girl in Delhi, last year has been recalled in Parliament, with women’s safety taking precedence over the Reservation Bill in the Lok Sabha on International Women’s Day.So,lets see how it goes and helps in preventing and responding to the sexual harassment.

This article is authored by Payal Anand from IIM Indore

NURTURING MODERN DAY HR

by 

Kavea from TAPMI

Ever wondered what does it take to retain employees like you are a pro in doing it? Ever wondered what it felt like to have your employees say ‘My office is my second home’? Ever wondered how it will feel like when your team gels really well and you being the secret brains behind it?

In the modern era, when attrition rates are on the rise, where more and more companies are looking for new ways of recruiting and retaining employees who can perform extremely well under pressure, who can adapt and deliver, we definitely should turn around and look out for ways to enhance their satisfaction level. No more will satisfying the hygiene factors work. One has to go well beyond it to satisfy even their implied needs. There lies the competitive advantage in terms of HR for a company. That’s exactly why some companies are investing huge sums of money in their yearly budget to identify the needs of employees from their innermost hearts.

Image Courtesy: freedigitalphotos.net

Leveraging on this fact, a lot of recreation plans are created every now and then, in addition to development centers of a company, where one socializes, relaxes. If they can also get the sense of belongingness to the company, “Woohoo! Target achieved!”

While some companies are going all out on employee benefits, a recent drastic measure employed by Yahoo Inc’s Marrissa Mayer, the new CEO, comes as a shocker. She has coiled back to traditional ways of working by curbing the scheme of working from home and insisted on face to face communication as opposed to flexibility. She believes that employees’ productivity goes up while they work from home whereas their innovation quotient takes a drastic dip. We will have to wait and see how the tradeoff between innovation and productivity, valuing flexibility and thereby alienating the independent minded employees, works for Yahoo. (Sarcasm says, “Past results prove otherwise”).

Results of a study in the field of home-work and productivity from Stanford says that telecommuting is nothing to be afraid of and it vouches for higher satisfaction levels among employees. Flexi work hours, though is a topic of debate, proves to be a deal-clincher as is shown in ‘Best employer ratings’ (Source: Business today, Economic times) where Google’s break out rooms, Agilent’s ‘Coffee talks’ and Infosys’s dormitories, ECCs (Employee care centers) are giving them the edge. Though enhancing one’s career plays the major part of the rankings, the ‘mind play’ is the game-changer. American express tops the employee satisfaction list as the employees feel that the company caters to the Gen Y needs. Companies like Aetna where 47% of people telecommute and Booz Allen still embrace flexibility while they claim that it greatly reduces their real estate costs and fuel costs.

Goodbye to the ages of making employees adapt to the policies. Embrace and welcome the age where policies and initiatives are formed by the feedback of employees. Nurture HR.

This article has been authored by Kavea from TAPMI

References:

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/best_company_2012.cms

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-02-27/news/37330998_1_workplace-flexibility-yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-innovation

POACHING OR NO POACHING?

by 

S. Priya,

 Lal Bahadur Institute of Management

Recruitment challenges are ever increasing and it is getting tougher and tougher to hire the right candidate for a job opening. The high growth rate in sectors like Technology and Retail, existing talent crunch and the increase in the number of start-ups are the main reasons for the rising challenges in recruitment. Poaching, as a recruitment strategy, has been debatable. Some hold the view of it being unethical and illegal. But, poaching is a wide-spread practice and companies not accepting to the fact are losing their employees to their competitors. There have been instances in the recent past where Non-Compete or Non-Solicitation agreements have not worked in favour of companies. Poaching is ethical as long as the intention is not to capture the employer’s customers or to sabotage the business operations.

image:freedigitalphotos.net

Poaching or No Poaching?

This is an ethical dilemma companies are in when filling niche positions. It was towards the nineteenth century that the employer-employee relationship shifted to a voluntary relation, where the power is distributed.

It has been defined as ‘the intentional actions of recruiters in one company to identify, contact, solicit and hire a currently employed individual or group of individuals away from another company.’

Poaching is a wide practice, it accounts for 30 percent of the movement in labour. The sectors like IT, technology, retail etc. are booming, NASSCOM and McKinsey predicts that the jobs technology space will increase ten-fold from the current 60,000 professionals to over 6 lacs people by 2015, and the recent increase in the number of start-ups is also fuelling hiring. Adding to this, there lack of readily available talent in India.

Poaching should be accepted, and even encouraged, to make companies more competitive. Moreover, any sort of Non-Solicitation agreement between organisations is unjustifiable under the current socio-economic conditions. The Non-Compete agreement between the employer and the employee is not legally enforceable. Organisations can’t bar an employee from venturing out of the organisation. Employees are to be treated as free people and not as subjects or assets that a company owns. There is no ethical issue involved with poaching; the final employee always has the discretion to reject the offer. Poaching can, in a free market, help organisations to put their assets to the best use.

As offshore outsourcing goes mainstream in India, multinationals are hiring Indians to head their teams in foreign markets. Notably, Accenture and Capgemini are increasing poaching employees from their Indian rivals, like TCS, Wipro, and Infosys, to compete more effectively against these companies.

When Jet airways restrained its pilots from joining Sahara, on the grounds that it had made considerable investments in training them, the court ruled in favour of the pilots stating that the skills and the knowledge acquired are a property of the pilots and they were free to take up employment with Sahara.

In 2010, the U.S. department of Justice barred giants like Apple, Intel Corporation and others from entering into a non-solicitation agreement for employees.  E-bay has been sued for entering into a non-solicitation of employees with Intuit.

The ever increasing competition amongst companies, high growth rate, especially in sectors like IT technology & services, recent increase in the number of start-ups, rising concern due to Talent Crunch are the main reasons for increase in Poaching as a recruitment strategy. Multinationals are eying the right talent who can hit the ground from day one. Companies are looking to stay ahead by differentiating on products, processes, technology and a host of other things, hence require the right skill sets and knowledge. The high rate of growth in sectors like, technology is creating more and more jobs. But the readily employable graduates in India are less than 30%. This rising gap between the skills required and that is available is creating the need for HRs to look for talents in other organisations. Companies, for example Oracle, Hewlett-Packard and Cisco, are diversifying into other businesses; this is increasing competition in an industry.

Poaching becomes unethical or illegal when the candidate, for a job, is misled by a company about the job being offer. Some practices associated with poaching cross the line when the employee is hired to steal information or clients related to the employer. Anti-poaching agreements are relevant when two organisations are engaged in joint-venture.

Employees are poached from ‘vulnerable’ companies. The real issue lies in the employer-employee relationship; it is a failure of the company to retain its employees. The reasons could vary from the pay and benefits to the whole employee proposition or because of their bosses.

The HRs should pick up signs displayed by employees at work. The most frequent sign is change in habits related to work, i.e., there is lack of engagement with projects or colleagues, large number of absences, getting up-to-date information on expense accounts.

Companies have been taking several measures to retain and attract employees by benchmarking on their employment brand against the competitors. Being competitive in pay and benefits and in the whole employment proposition could be the key. Long term incentive plans tied to the success of the business as a whole and succession planning could send a message to the employees that they are significant role and are valuable to the success of the business. Employees also leave because of their bosses, to retain employees, the managers should be effective. Knowledge sharing and trainings such as, Supervisory training, Leadership training could instil useful management skills.

NASSCOM has advised companies to not to resort to Poaching, it has been working out strategies to deal with situations where a whole of a team is wiped out or when the intention is to sabotage the operations. NASSCOM has recommended companies to follow a standardized exit and on-boarding process and ask for relieving letters from the new joinees.

There are three important stakeholders, Organisations, Educational Institutions and NASSCOM. Steps need to be taken collectively to reduce the gap between available talent and required skills. Effective education and training in institutions is the need of the hour. The stakeholders should work out strategies to formulate the curriculum, specialised courses, offer more practical exposure, guest lecturers from veterans to the students.

The article has been authored by S. Priya, Lal Bahadur Institute of Management

Sources:

1. Do no-poaching agreements help innovation or hinder careers? www.edn.com.

2. Firms Poach Top Talent From Recession-Weary Rivals, Wall Street.

3. Ethics, Poaching and Competitive Intelligence, www.ere.net.

4. Poaching Staff May Leave You Swimming With The Sharks. www.frontlinerecruitmentgroup.com.

5. Employee poaching: Not so bad after all?, www.risesmart.com/blog.

6. IT cos should not resort to poaching: Nasscom, ET Bureau Apr 28, 2010.

7. In Business, Poaching Allowed, www.vanderbilt.edu/magazines/vanderbilt-magazine/2010/04.

8. Technology Talent Poaching to Get More Aggressive in 2011, web.ebscohost.com.

DEVELOPING NON-HIERARCHICAL LEADERSHIP: FROM COMMAND TO COLLABORATE

 by 

Rajesh Prasad, 

TAPMI, 

Manipal

A majority of the companies have an intensely rigid hierarchy of leadership into their system. This ushers managers the room to sustain and companies to leverage their strengths. Nevertheless for companies that aim to embark on new strategies, they need sustainable and competent leadership. This is possible only in highly dynamic environment, where hierarchical leadership structures are surpassed by innovation. Such an environment provides opportunities to employees regardless of their rank and helps propel the company into a commanding position through collaborative and participatory leadership.

image:freedigitalphotos.net

In the recent times there is an evident shift in many businesses and not-for-profit organizations—transition from the more traditional and hierarchical model of leadership towards collaborative leadership for ameliorating relationships with others. This type of leadership seeks to involve others in decision making, is strongly ethical, and assures the career growth of employees along with better quality of work-life.

The business leadership has now been dominated by managers who ruled their enterprises from the top down. In earlier times, influence of two World Wars was very evident, as the organizational hierarchies were designed similar to that in military, with an extensive hierarchy to establish control through rules and processes. The desire of power, status and money, is very well brought out in 1956’s classic- ‘The Organization Man’ of William H. Whyte and in 1955, ‘The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit’ by Sloan Wilson.

In the late twentieth century the short term nature of stock market, caused business leaders to focus on myopic gains which side-lined the long-term growth. This not only manifested itself in jitters like the ethical debacles exposed by Enron and WorldCom but also showed up in the Wall Street meltdown. Due to this, people started doubting the calibre of corporate leaders in structuring a sustainable institution since they were self-centric and myopic in intent.

Ever wondered what could have probably gone wrong in whatever transpired? Traditional hierarchical system’s failure could have been an answer in the right direction. Today most of the work force simply won’t respond to the command type of leadership. The new generation work force is not willing to wait in queue for getting promoted and seek more and more opportunities. They are focussed more on job satisfaction apart from the monetary benefits that they are entitled to. In many companies employees are motivated by the mission and values of the organization. Dynamic leaders are more focused on customers. Hierarchical leaders aimed only nearby goals and are oblivious of the larger picture. One leader who walked the talk is Mr Paul Polman, CEO- Unilever. He expressed his views as- "I don't work for any shareholder. I only work for my customers."

Off late, the leaders are more focussed on the alignment between employees and the organization mission, vision and values. This helps empower the leaders and makes them perform through collaboration within the organization.

The following characteristics of these collaborative leaders contribute to their meaningful practice of non-hierarchical leadership:

Listening: They need to possess a strong commitment to listening others intently. They need to listen receptively to what is being explicit and implicit. Listening to one’s own inner voice is equally important. Reflection in the interim is conducive for the growth and advancement.

Aligning: Proper alignment of employees along company's mission is of utmost importance. Multi-national organizations where employees are more attached to local cultures instead of the company’s work culture, alignment becomes even more complex.

Listening: Johnson & Johnson is a stunning example where organization has aligned their employees perfectly and thereby directed them for performing in alignment with goals of the company. Traditional hierarchical leadership has been proved to be out of place and it has never been able to tackle the work place deviance. Diligent alignment of employees makes them responsible for the larger good of the organization which is something greater than their individual gains.

Empowering: The manner in which hierarchical leadership exercises its power is through command and taking total control of their subordinates. On the contrary, the non-hierarchical leadership traits enable the leaders to take control of the position by empowering the various leaders at different designations. The leaders at every level thus set excellent work standards for others to emulate in a conducive and collaborative atmosphere. The satisfaction out of this kind of quality work surpasses the feelings of individualistic and myopic gains.

Serving: New generation leadership believe that employees possess an intrinsic value apart from their tangible work performance. So, they are religiously committed for the growth of every single employee within the company. The leader should sense the innate responsibility of nurturing the professional and personal growth of the employees, off course within their gamut of power. Customer satisfaction and purposeful employees becomes the key for sustainable competitive advantage.

Collaborative: The leaders need to be persuasive and convincing others for taking a course of action, rather than using their positional authority for coercion. This aspect offers a very lucid distinction between the traditional authoritarian leadership model and the collaborative leadership model. The importance of persuasion instead of coercion has been corroborated by the Religious Society of Friends, Quakers, Britain (UK). Collaboration within the organization, with the customers and consumers and with the suppliers is a prerequisite for sustained solutions and services.

Generational Intelligence: The caliber to reflect and act, with an understanding of one’s own and other’s life-course, family and social history, placed within its social and cultural context. It needs the leader to place himself in the position of a person of a different age or generation while working towards sustainable solutions.

Summarizing the process - From Command to Collaborate:

The changing nature of the complexity of the business problems have brought out the inability of the organizations and individuals in solving it for lasting results. This has led to the need for a more collaborative and coherent yet diverse and innovative leadership within the organization.

The following initiatives will help the transition:

1.    Team Work & Team building

2.    Strong Reverse feedback mechanism

3.    Strong Legal Compliance & Grievance handling mechanism

4.    Strong basis for Performance Management

5.    Rewards & Recognition (Given to the performing associates from time to time)

6.    Brain Storming sessions with the team for decisions to be taken

7.    Strong upward & downward communication (Transparent processes)

8.    Developing a positive & employee friendly work culture

9.    Flexibility in work timings & work operations

10.  Social networking & socializing opportunities to be given to the employees.

The article has been authored by Rajesh Prasad, TAPMI, Manipal