Let us look at some of the possible options before the management or leadership of the SMEs to mitigate the challenges in talent development of their human resource.

Mapping the available capabilities in the organization to the Business Plan by taking stock of them will enable SME’s to arrive at the required capabilities. This inventory assessment exercise need not be a time consuming one. Keep it simple and short will enhance effectiveness. The managers themselves could conduct such an exercise or else use the services of external consultants or tools like the one in training orbit. Similarly, identifying the required capabilities as per the vision and the business plan will help in identifying gaps in the capabilities inventory.

The inevitable priority of the day- to- day operations may take precedence over the long- term goals, leadership is as much interested in building a strong managerial workforce with adequate capabilities, which would take the organisation to the next stage. A particular SME, diversifying into news products, services or market segments will require expertise in business development. A SME, moving into a phase of consolidation and organisation building would be interested in putting operation processes and systems in place. This would mean that identifying the personnel from within the organisation, who can be trained and then training them on these responsibilities. Thus, narrowing what is required for the future and picking up the right people for training, in these areas will help the SMEs. At the same time, it may be prudent not to attempt “the” right person for training in these capabilities but choosing a “set” of most probable personnel who could be trained in these areas. The risk of focusing on just one person can be detrimental. The person may leave or may not prove to be the best or ideal fit for the responsibilities.

Sponsorships to outside programmes may be better option for SMEs rather than opting for house programmes, where a certain critical size of participants is required. However, in such cases input on the upcoming relevant programmes become critical. The challenge is finding the sources, which inform about upcoming training events. Portals such as the Training Orbit feed this challenge, as they give a calendar of the programmes, coming up in the different areas and the different locations.

The constraints of time- do not have enough people to spare a sizeable number for an external programme and space - do not have training room to accommodate 20 odd people at one time. They can be overcome by doing simple things, such as breaking the programmes into smaller modules, of one to two hours and conducted within the work area, or shop floor. Using experienced and qualified resources from within the organisation, to take such courses is a good option. If it has to be an external faculty then it is preferable to have someone from the same city or town so that the faculty can come, a number of times for short durations.

SMEs need not to fret over the difficulties in developing their resource, because of the size. There are mature options if there is a will to help in executing the development plans.

Unlike the large firms SMEs face a big challenge in training their staff. However, a good planning will help meet this challenge successfully.

SMEs employ over 80% of the workforce across geographies. At the same time they face enormous business challenges including their difficulty in scaling up, investing in innovation and research and maintaining growth. One of the reasons for these, is the lack of development of the human resources. Finding and hiring talent for SMEs itself is a big challenge. However, developing them to deliver the long term vision of the leadership is an even bigger one.

SMEs, given their size and other business challenges face many issues related to human resource development. The problems come from number of factors including the size of the workforce, the (lack of) maturity of the HR function and (limitations in) execution of development plans.

The size of the organisation poses very simple operational issues. Large companies can afford to release their staff for training programmes given the support mechanism available (absence of an employee can be covered up by the others in the department), the less dependency on individuals (given the strength of the processes) and predictable and planned business operations. SMEs do not have these advantages. Given the small number of staff, releasing even one person for a training programme can hamper the day to day operations. Similarly given the small size organising and conducting an in-house training programme would be difficult, where typically around 20 participants would be ideal.

The lack of HR function is another contributing factor to the efforts in training employees in SMEs. HR function when available in SMEs are mostly operational in nature which takes care of the basics such as payroll, statutory compliances, benefits administration and others. They may lack either the bandwidth or the capability to take care of the higher order activities of human resourceurces development such as as capabilities assessment, identification of gaps in capabilities of the workforce vis a vis that required as per the business plan and planning for the fulfillment of the gaps.

The leadership often understands the need for the human resources development and would like to focus on it. However, they are constrained in executing their development intentions. This could be due to factors such as lack of dedicated personnel for human resource development, as we saw earlier, priority of the immediate business goals taking over the priorities of the long term, inability to adequately invest in the development effort or being able to inculcate the spirit of human resource development in the second line. Thus the intention of the leadership remains unfulfilled to the detriment of the organisation.

In the next posting we will examine some ideas by which SMEs could manage these challenges.

We have today incorporated a new feature in Training Orbit. Users can now indicate their proficiency levels against their skills when constructing their tDNA. We have kept the proficiency levels to three levels (Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3). We have defined the levels such that the user can relate to the same irrespective of which skill they choose. This is significant simplicity.

While researching how levels of capabilities are being notified, I found that there is too much of text which are given as indicators for different levels of proficiency. One tends to get lost in the process of reading the text and relating to the actual real life scenario. We have instead tried to define the levels in a manner where any user can relate to them with no difficulty and is practical. This is the way I believe it should be - simple and real. Let us take a real life scenario. Lets take the case of language proficiency. We can create a ten point scale for the proficiency with various kinds of indicators at each level or create a simple level which is practical. When asked whether we know a language. These are the normal responses - "I know little bit", "I can speak with difficulty", "I can speak very well", "I am fluent", "I am an expert", "I write very well".

We have created the three levels from these kind of real life responses to skills -

Level 1 - indicates beginning stage, learning phase, not so fluent, error prone etc.

Level 2 - indicates fluency, flawlessness, something which has become natural to oneself

Level 3 - indicates mastery, expert level, higher levels of depth etc.

We have also consciously stayed away from branding the proficiency level like beginner, expert, master, and so on. In my experience such branding diverts the attention of the user to analysing and judging whether the words are correct. Further, such branding also has an element of value judgment attached to the words which makes an individual uncomfortable. We have thus refrained from using words which individuals can associate their skills in the most simple yet appropriate manner.

This is a very important article re-emphaising a significant trend which we have been noticing for years now and are seeing accelerate even further. The analysis is primarily from the prevailing scenario in the US. However, I feel there are points which have implications or are indicators of things happening and to come world over.

Some of the key points made in this artilce include:

- recession has accelerated the process of finding alternates to permanent jobs including automation, temping, outsourcing and so on

- "diminishing job security is also widening the gap between the highest- and lowest-paid workers

- "....26% of the US workforce had jobs that were in one way or another "nonstandard". That includes independent contractors, temps, part-times, and freelancers."

Read:

The Disposable Worker - from the Business Week

My comments:

The fact that we are in turbulent times when change is accelerating the changes in the engagement model between the employer and the employee. This phenomenon of temping is not new. It has always been there. Labour was hired during the harvest season (seasonal workers). I worked in a PSU and notice that 30% of the labour was on contract (this was twenty years back). However, what may be new is that the so called temping and alternate models of engagement are happening at skilled and managerial levels too. Well, maybe we thought these levels were permanent. It is not. Alternate modes of engagement will increase for many reasons. Only one of them is the recession or the consciousness to reduce costs of labour. The other reason is also the changing attitude of the individuals to the engagement patterns of the yester-years. Many are opting voluntarily and consciously out of the corporate permanent regimen which would then force the corporates to find alternate engagement models if they desire to engage this pool of talent.

Whichever way it may be - whether the alternate engagement models are a consequence of changing behaviour of human beings or is driven by the organisations due to economic necessities, one thing is clear - the individual will have to take responsibility for one's career. And this includes career from a holistic perspective i.e. what is expected from work, how one wants to manage ones life for now and the future and so on. The era of individualisation demands maturing of individuals to take responsibility for their selves.

The year is ending a lot better than what many of us had prepared for. We were expecting worse. Isn’t it? Thank you God!!

The year began inauspiciously with the mother of all corporate scams. We – shareholders, employees, believers in our great Indian corporate leadership - received a letter which shocked us all. The letter from Mr Raju left us all aghast. Riding the tiger and not knowing when to get off by Mr Raju damaged the lives of many and created a distrust of the corporate leadership. Fortunately, we saw one of the swiftest actions from our government in true PPP - private public participation mode.  The company was salvaged in time. Many predicted that there were similar skeletons in many a corporate cupboard and it was only a matter of time before they would come out. Thank God there were no more (a)satyams during the year as some were expecting.

In the last few months of the last year it was a few and then the numbers kept increasing. That is the lay offs in some form or the other.  Companies were laying off people left, right centre, across companies and within companies at junior levels, middle and senior levels (for once there was no discrimination). Bad news kept pouring. Bosses were sending off employees during the day and were in turn being sent off at the end of the day. The last quarter started getting better. We were back to newspapers enjoying the daily dose of “so-and-so will be hiring 150 in the next six months”  kind of news. Thank God hiring is back.

Around the middle of the year the nation sat glued watching all those TV channel beaming scores and latest tallies from across the country and experts and some overnight experts of all kinds.  The mornings started with the latest score as the headlines. Swine flu did what political leaders have forgotten to do – unite the nation. We all watched the latest score the victims of the flu and went into panic mode if a colleague sneezed. (He was lucky, he was sent off from office, granted paid time off). The Swine flu lost interest or energy somewhere in between and let us get back to watching political discussions from the medical ones – the former is what we are best at, next only to cricket of course. Everything else is an unwelcome distraction. Thank God swine flu flew away without much damage done.

Thank God we have a government. Yes, we have one. We were all prepared for many months of no government. We were prepared for a divided mandate. We were prepared to see flip flops in the sides our leaders would take. We were prepared to watch the trading of a different kind happening. Strange are the ways of God. None of this happened. We had a government within a few days of the elections. We were denied of the tragic comedy. We all felt so relieved that this happened. Thanks God the formation of government went off smoothly.

Thank God it was not one more year when we got numerous calls during the day from the banks pestering us take loans, credit cards, insurance and what not.  Good that the banks had run out of money or were not willing to part it. There was so much peace. (At times I did felt bad that I did not getting those calls. Lesser calls made me wonder at times if my value has come down. Self pride was hurt.) In general lesser of those calls was a relief.

Honestly it has been a lot more peaceful year than what it augured to be in the beginning. Thank God!!!

We do so many tasks during the day. In our job we are assigned projects that need to be carried out. We set out to plan for these projects and assignments. We prepare assuming things will happen they we plan. But more often things do not happen the way one plans. Good operations personnel understand this and have ways to overcome such unpredictable situations and deviation from the expected.

There was this colleague of mine who I worked with. He was a phenomenal guy in terms of making things happen. He had many behavioural traits which were his strength but then there is something I learnt and have tried to build in my own ways of working. It has helped. It could help others too.

The practice is of having backup or even better, backups.

We are talking of situations where we are doing the planning and not about those that we cannot or do not. Those situations are different from the ones we are considering. For example, one day we start to our office and take the route which we normal take to commute to the office but unusually we find that the traffic has got choked because of some accident. This situation is different. Take the case of something different. I am planning to go for an important customer presentation. I have worked for days and think I have made a world class presentation. I am really charged up to make the presentation to the customers. The morning started off well with nice cool breeze blowing. I walk into the room set my laptop. Suddenly the file would not open. Something has happened. I am fighting hard. The clock is ticking and my heart is beating fast and I am sweating badly. What was supposed to be an exciting day has turned out to be a nightmare.

What could have been done? I believe that I should have taken some kind of backup to carry my presentation. I could have carried the presentation in a pen drive or could have sent it the day before to a colleague to carry it with him or cut into a CD. Maybe it would have eased the whole thing.

 There are many instances in different areas such things do happen. Order from one customer is delayed. Approval which was expected to come has not. Material which should have arrived has not. Sample test which was expected to come has not come. Budget approval has not come for 100% of what was expected; only 90% of what was expected has been approved.

This happens often, sometimes on small and sometimes on large scale, sometimes at minor level and sometimes as highly significant level. Planning is not just about expecting things to happen the way we expect or want it to but to plan for contingency. What if? Let’s prepare ourselves thinking not just “Yes, it will happen” but also “What if it does not happen the way it should”. In one sense, i.e. psychologically this acts as a shock absorber in case we hit a road bump. Since we have factored the “what if”, we are not caught unawares when something untoward happened. Thus it helps us face the situation better. In another sense, i.e. practically this ensures that things move on. We after all have a backup to take care of the situation. Of course how many backups can we have? No hard and fast rule. But I would give a thumb rule of three. Think of two alternatives to “what if”.

Adapting to something unforeseen is being smart. Planning with assumptions that something will not happen the way it should is being smarter.

Lets get smarter. Lets have backup.

There are questions I dread. One of them is ‘Which organization should I join?’ Students [doing MBA] often ask me that question when the placements begin.

Their problem is real. The students want to have some rationale for making a choice. It is a different matter that very often the placement committee does not give you any choice at all; particularly if you have got a PPO – Pre-placement Offer. They get uncomfortable that the rules for making choice are not clear to them. They study for fifteen years that everything is ‘cause and effect’; when it comes to making the most important [and the first career decision] in life, they are unable to consider relevant factors that would guarantee a good job and career. I have always felt that our academic system teaches planning but not enough emphasis is placed on ‘exploring’. Ambiguity makes all uncomfortable, but more so to the young.  

Girls often reconcile to the fact that their parents will ask them not to take up a job elsewhere except the city of their residence; and I think that is somewhat unfair to them, and unfortunate. But that settles the rule for her – ‘I will take up a job that requires me to work in Mumbai’ she says and automatically limits the choice. In a not-so-happy way the selection is to be made by her among few organisations.

There are in my opinion, two aspects that students must appreciate. Firstly, every employee experiences the organisation in a different way. Perhaps because they get different boss or relate differently to him/ her even if common. And secondly, growth and not money should be the criterion for freshers to select their employer. Working in a good organisation we tend to grow as a professional and as a person too. There are certain organisations where a person experiences growth, unlike others. This is akin to plants growing well in their natural habitat. A Christmas tree survives in Mumbai but blossoms in Himalayas. A coconut tree would not give highest yield in Himalayas but in Mumbai. So our search must be for our ‘natural habitat’.

There is, therefore, no alternative to exploring. We can find out how ex-employees have experienced an organisation and that could be a good thumb rule to go by.

But all said and done, we must appreciate that, like [arranged] marriages, the employee has to make his stint with an organisation rewarding and successful, it usually does not ’happen’ automatically. For students, for whom everything is decided by their institutes, that is quite a change and first demand for being proactive.

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By Vivek S Patwardhan

VSP as we call him, is an Executive coach and HR consultant. He is also a visiting faculty for the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.During his 33 years career with Asian Paints where he was its HR head at the time of retirement, he played a vital part in shaping the careers of many while shaping the organisation itself.

Please visit his website: http://www.vivekvsp.com

There are some statements that we make without realizing the damage they cause. [I must confess here that I too have made those, but recovered in time!].

‘My marks do not reflect my potential’ is a statement I made as a student so he is punishing me by making me hear it from some of my students! When I joined the corporate world I graduated to even better one - ‘How can my boss appraise me?!’

Needless to say that these statements serve no purpose. The author of such statements is aware of the bungled up performance, but it is nice to hide it under a big statement that protects his self-image. Repeating it many times, people who make these statements start believing them to be true!

The problem does not stop there. What they prevent themselves from understanding is that the equation p = P – i is a very powerful equation with a deep meaning. Small p represents performance, capital P represents potential and i represents interference. The problem is that the make-believe statement prevents people from examining the interference, or the recurring patterns of thoughts and feelings that come in the way of delivering performance to the full potential.

For several years the Indian Cricket team failed to win matches, and lost those which had a win almost in their hands. Jana Novotna loses Wimbledon finals to Steffi Graf when she is all set to win it. Sharad Pawar, a great leader himself, fails to reach the heights of his mentor YB Chavan and has given up hopes of becoming India’s Prime Minister. Sehwag undoubtedly a great player, but he does not achieve the consistency of Sachin Tendulkar so the overall achievements fall miles short of the Little Master. Vilasrao Deshmukh, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra goes to Taj after 26/11 with film makers instead of reaching out to people. Why does this happen? The power of i [interference] is tremendous; it prevents you from giving your best.

When you say, however, that ‘My marks do not reflect my potential’ you prevent yourself from examining the ‘i’ [the recurring patterns of thoughts and feelings] that will keep interfering in your performance; what can be more destructive than that?

There is nothing like keeping one’s mind open. But people must learn the hard way, like me! People tolerate your nonsense because they are not interested in you and they are tactful. They smile as if approvingly, when you utter the big statement about your performance not reflecting potential, and some even would readily nod in agreement. That makes us happy! But beware of such people, and beware of your own attitude.

‘“Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has a hole in his head” somebody has said. Actually, ‘very well said’ I would say!

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By Vivek S Patwardhan

VSP as we call him, is an Executive coach and HR consultant. He is also a visiting faculty for the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.During his 33 years career with Asian Paints where he was its HR head at the time of retirement, he played a vital part in shaping the careers of many while shaping the organisation itself.

Please visit his website: http://www.vivekvsp.com

I have always been intrigued by the trainees’ dilemma.

When you nominate participants to behavioural training, the first question they ask is ‘why me’? If his/ her boss has nominated the participant for the program then ‘Does he consider this to be my weakness?’ is a question that the participant will not only not ask but take it as answered! Obviously in the affirmative!

If you are sending an employee’s nomination for an ISABS course, then this question comes up without fail, with greater force, unless the participant is an HR professional.

I have always felt that behavioural programs are like a glass of whisky; people want to enjoy it but they do not want others to know it.

For many managers training is equivalent to repairs to a car by a motor mechanic. That’s the real problem. If the boss notices a problem, he says “He needs training, [read: Ask trainer to fix it]”. There cannot be a more mechanical view of human beings than asking for training to address a behavioural problem.

This matter gets further complicated when the HR Manager does not realise the fallacy of this approach. He not only conducts training for the employee, which means he spends money, but he is at a loss to understand why they same manager complains of ineffectiveness of training. That often does not tally with the ratings given for training by participants.

Training does not result in change of behaviour. People do not become more assertive, manage time [or themselves] better, learn to manage conflicts effectively, develop stronger inter-personal equations when they leave the training room.

Learning people skills is akin to learning to operate software. One has to be alert, explore, check ‘handbook’, reflect on what works, and discuss with others to gain quicker understanding. I said ‘reflect on what works’ because we tend to use people skills with different levels of effectiveness with different people. And in different situations.

The trainer cannot go beyond placing the ‘software’ in our hands.

Pre-program discussions with participants give good understanding to a trainer about expectations of participants. The HR Manager would be more effective if [s]he has a discussion with the recommending manager before a nomination is accepted. This ensures that clear expectations are set before the training begins.

But exception proves the rule. If you nominate an employee for an ‘Out Bound Training’, nobody complains. There are perhaps no expectations of change in behaviour. In fact, you will notice enthusiasm. Being one with ‘nature’ is important. ‘Nature’ does the trick! Do you get me?

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By Vivek S Patwardhan

VSP as we call him, is an Executive coach and HR consultant. He is also a visiting faculty for the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.During his 33 years career with Asian Paints where he was its HR head at the time of retirement, he played a vital part in shaping the careers of many while shaping the organisation itself.

Please visit his website: http://www.vivekvsp.com

Three months back my brother and a couple of other people from the neighborhood decided to start a Sunday Vedic class in the mutt (temple cum community hall) next to my property. I enthusiastically joined in as it was a long standing desire coming true. I should confess I had tried doing some self learning in the last few years with audio aids but wasn’t too successful. The accuracy of pronunciation eluded me and the length and complexity of words in some of the Sanskrit shlokas (verses) stood in the way. The only thing I managed with some degree of success thanks to the internet and the English translations so easily available now, was understanding the meaning of quiet a few of the shlokhas.

For some one associated with learning in a corporate scenario in various contexts over the last 16 years it has been a different experience. As it is too early to come to any generalizations and conclusions I am just stating a few facts in this write up.  

There is a teacher who teaches the group of students numbering 18 every Sunday for  1 hr 15 minutes. The composition of the learner group is as follows: 10 children between the ages of 8-15, 6 adults in the age group of 35-40 and two elders above the age of 60. My son aged 10  is also part of this  group , though he refuses to sit with me , instead sits with his friends.

The teacher who is an independent financial consultant by profession, refuses to take any fee. In fact he has been encouraging the group to have more classes every week to speedup the learning process, and is ready to offer his time whenever the group wants.The premises are in the local community hall and anyone is free to join.The teacher chants a few words once aloud all the while focusing on the clarity of pronunciation and the intonations, and this is followed by the group chanting the words loudly twice, and this teachning-learning continues. The teacher repeats the earlier words again in case he feels people aren’t able to pronounce/intonate it perfectly. This is done even when he feels a couple of people are out of sync. He is able to follow the chants of each one in the group and able to identify when some one is out of sync. He stops to help the individual chant it right. Every session is broadly divided into 2 parts. The first part lasting around 30-35 minutes is spend on chanting  what had been learned in the earlier sessions, and the second part focuses on new verses.

The session ends with an exhortation by the teacher to continue individual practice during the week.

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The author Sriram is a Director and Partner with Aventus Partners, a HR firm providing executive leadership solutions.

Please check out his profile in Training Orbit at http://www.trainingorbit.com/Person/345/sriram