Category Archives: India 2008

Five Things HR Can Do

By John Sumser | Published: March 13, 2009

Five Things HR Can Do

(March 13, 2009) The line between HR Basher and patriotic critic is lost on some. While many seasoned HR professionals are an active part of their company’s strategy design and execution, many more are not.

I spoke with a colleague last night who said, there are three types of HR professional:

  • Tactical … managing and controlling administrative problems, monitoring compliance, managing organizational conflict, most training.
  • Tactical but Wants to be strategic … understands HR is mostly a cost center and wants to return more value than they receive
  • Strategic … part of the heart of the business making playing field decisions and competitive distinctions

A fair part of the HR mandate involves getting lots of little administrative details right. From payroll and benefits to recruiting information and scheduling, these details are critical to the smooth functioning of the organization. Screw them up and the world falls apart. Get them right and no one notices. Like most great logistics problems, the tactical part of the HR workload is thankless and mission critical. Things really do fall apart when this stuff doesn’t get done. Great progress is measured in incremental cost reductions.

It’s the tactical part of HR that uses measures like “cost per hire” to determine value. In tactical matters, improvement is incremental and measured in single digit percentage improvements.  At the other end of the spectrum is value multiplication. Imagine that there is a bar. Above it, pennies multiply into dollars. Below it, dollars turn into pennies. Above, value. Below Cost. Above strategic. Below tactical.

The strategic part of HR might include identifying a major competitive advantage in a plant location decision. Or, it might be seeing that an average of five hours of overtime causes a systemic decrease in productivity. A strategic picture helps redeploy the existing team in a new venture. It knows where to find synergy. It understands real multidimensional planning. It manages itself the way that other C-level functions are managed…to targeted performance values with out of your control variables.

If the HR profession is to move ahead and put an end to the annual cycle of profession bashing (see yesterday’s piece), here are some practical suggestions.

  1. Be curious about the business.
    Always ask questions like “how does the staffing level affect performance”. Get people to help you understand what they do. You don’t have to be an engineer but you do have to know what makes one tick. Understand the core functions of the business. Learn to tell which kinds of people are good at those jobs and why.
  2. Measure stuff.
    The currently available metrics are wretched. Don’t focus on cost, focus on benefit. Metrics are your friend, you just have to figure out what to measure and what it means. Being able to show quantitative impact makes you a part of the team. There are really valuable bits of information stored around the organization. Measuring helps you find them. Invent crazy metrics and see if they mean anything. (Number of bald men per thousand lines of code)
  3. Stop focusing on cost cutting and expense
    These are not bonus activities, they are the basic job. Survival is all about expense management, strategy is about growth and multiplication. Do the basic job, focus on contributions that change the game.
  4. Free people to manage themselves
    One of the greatest contributions HR can make is to unencumber workers from overbearing procedures and forms. Throw away the job descriptions. Reduce the number of categories.
  5. Plan, Plan, Plan
    It’s not a strategy if there isn’t a plan. No one ever expects the plan to come completely true. Making it is an act of vision. Learn about scenario planning. Anticipate the next five years of hiring requirements and reorient your operation to navigate there. Make a list of everyone you’re going to hire in the next five years.

Be prepared, it’s HR Bashing season and a really good time to demonstrate the Strategic value you offer. Avoid the mistake of responding to criticism by saying “You’re wrong”, or, “Stop whining and become a resource.” The first step in recovery is admitting you have the problem.

The Human Capital Institute offers useful training to HR professional who are trying to move from tactics to strategy. Find out more about them. (They don’t know I’m a fan)

I’m on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Friendfeed. Catch up with me.

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081021 India Postcard 15

By John Sumser | Published: October 29, 2008

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Dharamshala and Home

(If you’re interested, I’ve built an online album of images from the trip)

Getting from Delhi to Dharamshala was completely uneventful. I’d become so used to hard travelling that I barely noticed the ease with which we simply got on the plane and went there.

We were met at the Kangra airport by a group of monks who took great delight in tending to our needs. (If a bunch of crows is a murder, what is a bunch of monks called). We got into the monastery’s van and headed up the mountain.

In this part of town, the roads aren’t so rough. Given that were a mile high in the foothills of the Himalayas, that’s really astonishing. The snow is murder every winter. There WERE signs that the roads can be trouble. Compared to the highway between Kushinigar and Bodhgaya, this was a walk in the park.

We stayed at the Asia Health Resort (click at your own risk…somehow, this site contains a piano version of the theme from Friends), a newer hotel at the edges of McLeod Ganj (the town next to Dharamshala). Don and I were a day ahead of the rest of the travelers so we were able to get to know the town and the shops on that first night.

McLeod Ganj is less like the rest of India and more like the bar from Star Wars. You are every bit as likely to hear English spoken at the next table as an Indian variant. The town is full of wayfaring spiritual seekers of the REI encrusted jet setting variety.

The streets are an endless string of vendors hawking everything but that tour jacket and tee shirt I’ve been hoping for. If you want statues of Buddha, this is the place. Beads, paintings, books, bags, handicrafts, more statues, more paintings, restaurants and small markets. I try to stick my head into each and everyone.

Besides the aggressive tourist hustle, the area is noticeable for the happiness of the people here. This is really not like the rest of the trip.

We visit a number of interesting institutions devoted to Tibetan Cultural Preservation. Several episodes stick out in my mind.

I fell in love again at the Tibetan Children’s Village (TVC). She didn’t say much. The boys muscled her out of the way.She was patient and persistent about visiting with me. (Here’s the other pal I made there)

The village is part orphanage and part way station. As the Tibetan diaspora continues its evolution, children need shelter while their parents navigate new cultures and Economies. The TVC provides continuity and housing for kids in transition as well as a stable environment for orphans. It was very sweet to just sit and play with the kids for a couple hours

The monastery, Kalichakra temple and Dalai Lama Residence provided an interesting insight into the blending of political and spiritual values. Under what could easily be described as house arrest, the property is protected by armed members of the Indian Military. The temple included some of the most amazing examples of Tibetan art that you can see anywhere.

We got to meet with the Karmapa at the Gyuto Vajrayana University and Monastery. Though it doesn’t actually work like this, he is the most likely successor (as a visible Tibetan figure) of the Dalai Lama. It was a rushed affair. As we were leaving, a wrist mala that I had just purchased exploded. The little beads went everywhere.

I happened on this note as I was writing:

“malas are alive. my first spiritual teacher told me that when a mala breaks, it means that many karmas have been destroyed. it is a good thing. she said that one should not restring the mala, nor wear it or use it again. all the japa, all the mantras and prayers that were said on those beads have done their work of transmutation. she said that when the mala breaks, it is time to let that mala go. perform a ritual of gratitude for the burning up of those karmas, and no matter how much you loved that mala, let go of all attachment, and give it to the sea. “

Interesting notion.

We flew back to Delhi to wrap up the trip. Another Nikko Hotel across from the market. It was a real let down after Dharamshala.

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081013 India Postcard 14

By John Sumser | Published: October 21, 2008

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Bodhgaya To Delhi To Dharamsala

Dom and I split off from the group for a couple of days. Instead of another long bus and train ride, we fly from the capital of  Bihar (Patna). We take a Tata driven by the fellow whose nieces I met yesterday. Annand is along for the ride.

Once again, we are in Maoist country. It looks much different from the car than the bus. The houses are close. The wood fires fro breakfast n the grass huts stings the eyes.

We stop for tea at a crossroads. I can terll from the wide eyed look of the people in the “tea house that big white guys with pony tails don’t stop for tea every morning.

It’s a modified grass hut with deep recesses and an open front. There are maybe ten long tables (like the coffe shops in the real Italian partds of north beach. It,s dark back there and staring eyes are peering out.

The flies are thick here. Annand has me sit at the table closest to the road (in case we need to jump in the car). The table is so thick with flies that I wonder if I’ll be able to sit the tea down.

I mimic the sweeping motion that the rest of the men at the tea house (no women seem to be allowed). That keeps me entertained and some of the flies at bay until the tea comes. When it comes, it is served in ceremonial clay tea cups, slightly larger than a shot glass but shaoed like a half sphere.

In the middle east and some of Southern Asia, “tea” is a hot drink made mostly with hot milk and sugar, The tea itself is like the vermouth in a very dry martini, It’s mostly there by reputation.

Three sips of tea, three big smiles of gratitude and five or six slow rolling waves at the flies and were done. It’s clear that Annand accomplished something by making the stop. We tip heavily and get back in the Tata’

From there, it’s relatively uneventful until we get into the taxi at the Delhi airport.

There’s no such thing as a taxi driver who knows his (there are no women) way around Delhi. The typical gambit seems to be … wander around for a while then, blame the customer for not knowing where they are going.

What’s really funny about this round of the taxi game is that the driver started grumbling at us just as we passed the hotel. 

The Palace Heights hotel on Conneaut Square is a very hip little place in a very upper middle classs part of town. Our room is tiny. The bathroom is so small that you have to come out of it to turn around. But, the water’s hot and the tiny beds are firm.  Our luggage takes up all of the available floor space.

After dinner, I make the first phone calls I’ve been able to make since arriving here. Walking the streets with my phone, I notice the dogs working the block.

Like cows, dogs own the streets of India. Rarely kept as house pets, they live on the streets. They’re sort of wild and sort of tame. They seem to belong to the neighborhood.

For a half an hour or so, I watch a pack of twelve dogs negotiate sleeping space and territorial boundaries on the dark side of the street. There’s a white group and a yellow group in the pack. Barks, growls and yelps coupled with firm physical maneuvers shape this nonverbal dialog. I head upstairs when it looks like they might get a little rowdy.

In the morning we head back to the airport for the trip to Dharamsala, 

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