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Ed tor’s Note It is amazing how the HR Technology landscape has snuck up on us. Fueled by innovation and VC firms investing heavily in the HR tech industry. In 2015, we saw investment deals of over $600 million and private equity research deals worth over $900 million.

This led us to track HR software companies – and we found over 100 new startups in talent analytics, online learning, assessment science, mid-core HR systems, and social and referral recruiting alone in the standalone Human Resources management milieu.

With that in mind, we bring to you, ‘Top HR Software Systems of 2016’. Plunge In! Further, in this issue, we have explored the proliferation of companies hiring 1099-ers to supplement their workforce as a part of their business models to deliver high profits for its investors. Legal Hub (p 84) delves into misclassification lawsuit that is set to go down the jury trial beginning June 20, 2016. The increasing number of

IC misclassification cases highlights reflects that companies have not yet minimized their misclassification liability. The conversation in Legal Hub is largely driven by the lawsuit brought against Uber, a legal battle that has reached fever pitch.

Among other things, we have, Employee Benefits (p 48) worklife integration and freedom at work, Q&A with Jane (p 38), the problem with maternity leave in the U.S. and how one company is making it easier on employees and the companies (p 90) in HR Tools & Technology, and alternatives to traditional hiring methods (p 96) in Recruitment Point.

Happy Reading!

Like always, we welcome your comments. You may reach us at editor@thehrdigest.com or Editor The HR Digest, The Fastest Media, 3651Lindell Road, Suite 320D, Las Vegas, NV 89103.

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The Team Editorial Anna Domanska, Editor-in-Chief

Christy Gren, Sub-Editor

Priyansha Mistry, Sub-Editor

Aubrey Chang, Associate Editor

Riana Petanjek, Sub-Editor

Design Kevin Paul Sr. Graphic Designer

Project Management Tony Raval Project Director

Marketing Jason Miller Sr. Project Director

Jay Raol Project Director

Advertising Richard Dean, Advertising Manager

Technology John Hancock Head-Web Department

Le Manh Coung, Sr Sofrware Coordinator

Finance Control R R Baratiya

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Julia Hunt, Magazine Production

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Content Features

12 HR DRIFT

26 LEADERSHIP INSIGHTS

Talent on the Way Keeps Problems Away: Bridging the Skill Gap Problem

Organizations Cry Foul As EU Says Commute Is Work!

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38 Q&A with Jane

A reader writes: “I AM A PARTYPOOPER?” I hate attending office parties!

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EMPLOYEE BENEFITS

COVER STORY

Self-Management is the Recipe for Employee Freedom

60 TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT

The World of HR Software Systems

Best Training & Development Companies of 2016

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90 HR TOOLS & TECHNOLOGY

84 LEGAL HUB

Top Perks for 2016: Parental Leave Management?

Lessons from the Employee Classification Lawsuit: 1099 Contractors V. Employers

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96 RECRUITMENT POINT

When Traditional Hiring Approaches Are Not Enough

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126

SUCCESS STORY

An Insight into Successful HR Strategies of Power Players

EVENTS & CONFERENCES

118 WORKPLACE CULTURE

UPCOMING HUMAN RESOURCES EVENTS & CONFERENCES |

Transparency Can Help You Take Your Business To The Next Level

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HR drift

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Facebook and McKinsey to Increase Diversity with TechPrep Facebook launched a brand new initiative known as TechPrep to boost diversity. Aimed particularly at minorities and women, it is designed to help youngsters in order to find a path into the world of technology with the help of their parents. The tech goliath’s new initiative is to provide a wide range of expedients like games, tutorials, and videos for parents in order to help their children seek a career in computer programming fields.

Usually, TechPrep is a general expedient centre for parents, guardians, and learners who are interested in technology.

The social media giant is planning to focus over communities with a huge amount of populations of Latino and Black people. The government feels that the underrepresented minority group will make more than fifty percent of the population by the year 2050, but in the current time at every transformation step in their STEM they are unevenly lost, which includes the field like studies, careers, and computer science and programming.

Facebook and McKinsey conducted a research study, which was all about the involvement of underrepresented minority groups in careers involving computer programming. At the end of the results, they found out that 77% of guardians or parents have no idea how to help their child seek computer programming & science degree.

In a very similar manner, non-college graduate guardians and parents & lower income parents who face the similar situation of not having any idea about how to help their child seek a computer programming and science degree, the figure reaches to 83%. This is where the idea for TechPrep popped in.

The website, which is available both in Spanish and English, will be curated according to each users need, providing varied contents regarding age, kind of resources, and skill level.

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Amazon turns “Parent-Friendly” with New Parental Leave Policies

HR drift

The E-commerce goliath has stepped up its game. Amazon announced a new parent-friendly leave policy that offers paid time off for new fathers. Under this leave policy, adoptive or new birth parents who have been working in the company for at least a year will receive paid leave of six weeks.

New fathers, for the first time in the company, will be able to take time off following the adoption or birth of a child. Taking a cue from its rivals who revamped their parental leave policies few months back, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos too decided to up the ante in the corporate world for new parents. The announcement came from the retail e-commerce giant on Monday, about the latest addition of six weeks to maternity leave and paternity leave policies.

For the first time, Bezos’ company will be providing this special benefit to new dads. It is being predicted that the focus groups, employee surveys, and revival of policies in nemesis companies forced Bezos to jump up with this conclusion to update Amazon parental leave policy. All full-time workers, who have been working at Jeff Bezos’ organization, are eligible for these newly updated policies.

Jeff Bezos and his company have been subjected to public scrutiny for a while now. Ever since The New York Times led an investigation over work culture and the way employees are being treated at Bezos’ company, raised eyebrows of many and brought work culture of Jeff’s team into question.

This aspect of leave policy at Jeff Bezos’ company was among those top aspects of his workplace culture, which was subjected to various scrutiny and speculations after it was given a title of ‘bruising’ place to work by leading publishing giant, The New York Times.

The publishing giant took a jibe on Amazon quoting that, “Several fathers said they left or were considering quitting because of pressure from bosses or peers to spend less time with their families.”

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Starbucks and Fiat Slapped with Tax Repayments of Euros in Millions!

Two of the biggest corporate giants Starbucks and Fiat have been slapped with Euros in millions as a tax repayment when EU issued a milestone decision this week on the avoidance of tax payment by huge multinational companies. This case, which is led by competition commissioner of EU, Margrethe Vestager, is expected to mark a long-term legal prototype that is designed to abbreviate routine practices by the Europe MNCs to confine their tax payments.

This tax repayment sentence for Starbucks and Fiat will be served as a lesson for other corporate giants like Amazon and Apple, who have been in the center eye of the investigations led by Vestager. The senior officials of EU who have been following the case are claiming that Starbucks and Fiat are only an Iceberg’s tip; the bigger giants are yet to be unveiled in front of the public eyes.

These cases are focused under tax rulings, which are also known as comfort letters that are issued by the government to many organizations across the continent probing to get an idea under which jurisdiction the lowest amount of tax could be paid by them.

Starbucks is estimated to make a repayment of an amount not more than €30m. The estimated amount for Fiat is rather vague; it will definitely have to pay much bigger amount than Starbucks, which wouldn’t be bigger than €200m amount.

The administrations have questioned royalty payments involved in internal agreements. It has also probed further to question whether coffee giant Starbucks has been inflating its amount internally by setting up the cost of coffee beans, which are imported from Switzerland.

The Government of Dutch is claiming that all the calculations, which it has used to compute tax burden of Starbucks and Fiat are legal. In the first four such cases, these countries are involved- Netherlands: Starbucks, Ireland: Apple and Fiat, Luxembourg: Amazon. Although these companies insist that they haven’t been doing anything wrong, lawyers are predicting that these cases will certainly be appealed in front of European courts as well.

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Fiat Offering Free College Degree Programs Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is offering free college education to dealership employees and their family members through a new partnership with Strayer University, in a renewed effort to bring in and cultivate talent.

HR drift

The Italian-U.S. company has teamed up with Virginia-based Strayer University to offer Degrees@Work program. Tuition assistance for employees is rare for the auto industry. Compensation for salespeople, service technicians and others at stores selling new automobiles is usually managed by the dealership owners, while car makers cover pay and benefits for white-collar employees and factory workers.

A bachelor’s degree at Strayer is valued at $58,000, and dealers must pledge to help fund employees, although Fiat Chrysler would bear most of the cost. While Mr. Gardner didn’t reveal the auto maker’s expected costs, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles will also shoulder the costs for other levels of education, including a master’s degree.

The courses include marketing, consumer behavior and information technology.

The annual National Automobile Dealers Association’s study that was released in late October, found annual turnover at dealerships has increased over the last three years. In 2014, people left their jobs at a rate of 39% across all positions, a 3% increase from the previous year.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’s Degrees@Work program comes with its own risks. Employees could take up the program and then move on to another dealer for a higher paycheck or quit the industry altogether.

The company started testing the program in May at 130 dealerships.

Other auto dealers also offer education programs. Starbuck’s offers to cover the cost of four-year degree of all employees who work for more than 20 hours a week through Arizona State University’s online program. It extended the coverage to include families of U.S. veteran or active military reservist the company employs. General Motors Co., offers to help employees of dealers gain access to higher education, but doesn’t provide full funding. Earlier in June, health insurer Anthem Inc. started offering a similar program to its 55,000 full and part-time workers.

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Organizations cry foul as EU Says 'Commute' is Work!

Good news for the entire mobile workers, as EU court of Justice, implements this new rule, ‘Commute’ is Work. Lots of employers and organizations are going to be affected by this law. The decision is being slammed and criticized across Britain by business groups.

They are claiming to be as another “Luxembourg Example” trying to decide for Brits. The European Court of Justice has declared that for mobile workers, which have no fixed office place, the travel hours should be considered under the European Union’s Working Time Directive (WTD) as working hours. This rule will have a massive direct impact on industrial sectors that have a great number of workers who are bound to keep travelling, such as door-to-door salesman, care workers, drivers, and installation engineers.

Executive director, British Chambers of Commerce, Adam Marshall, said “Once again, a faraway court is taking decisions that could impact business prospects, job creation and economic growth in the UK. Companies of all sizes will be dismayed that Luxembourg is once again intervening in a way that stops EU member states from running their own labour markets.”

On an average, the working limit is up to 48 hours according to WTD. Many Brit employees opt out this particular time cap.

Head of trade policy at the Institute of Directors and EU, Allie Rension, said that, “This ruling will surprise and concern many UK businesses, and indeed public sector employers, who had been following the law to the letter. The notion that the period mobile workers spend travelling between home and their first client in the morning must count as working time goes above and beyond the protections intended by the law, recent ECJ decisions have included rulings on holiday pay, how leave carries over between years, and rest periods from work.”

Many organizations are likely to figure themselves at the breach of newly introduced rules, and could be easily forced to boost up wages in order to fascinate and attract a new employee set and staff, without breaking the legislation for minimum wage.

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Uber Data Breach Scandal

HR drift

Always there is a headline, which highlights the loss of trust and employee data breach. The latest entrant in the data breach scandal is Travis Kalanick led company, Uber. Despite the headlines flashing Uber Data Breach scandal, the ride-sharing company claims that the recent leaks are accidental.

Recently, Uber (accidently as they quote it) leaked the data of its drivers. The leaks revealed pictures of driving licenses, registration numbers of the vehicle, social security numbers, along with other personal information. The entire Uber data breach was exposed when the driver associated with Uber noticed the confidential information’s leak while he was trying to upload his personal data. This breach happens right few months after Kalanick led company employed a new chief security officer, Joe Sullivan from Facebook. Hours after the employee data breach information surfaced, Uber sent out a statement mentioning the leak to be a consequence of ‘Mistake’.

Uber claimed that the leak has affected ONLY 674 American drivers and that the drivers who were registered were inadvertently flashed with the leaked information in their Uber account’s document page.

Reportedly, the leak is connected with its new release ‘Uber Partner’, which is designed in concern of drivers, so that they can access more information and the company operates in better norms for them. In the past, Uber has been quite slack with details of their drivers. It was reported in March that the company had a store of sensitive data, which could permit its access to GitHub that contains 50,000 driver’s database. Users of the ride-sharing app have been affected by such security issues, until last week when company fixed an issue, which allowed hackers to control Uber accounts that were stolen in the past.

Uber apologized for its employee data breach claiming it as a mistake and gave a statement that it will personally make a follow up with drivers, the purpose of data expose is not yet clear. Whether it was someone with nefarious plans or the other way round, Uber needs to learn from this experience and keep its rein tight over its employee safety and benefits.

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The US Employment Rate Gets us a major boost The US Employment rate has showed a strong boost in the number of jobs available last month, which has bolstered the Federal Reserve’s December rate hike case. Officials were worried about the impact of the economy that will eventually warm up the surrounding without any further higher borrowing amounts.

In October, employers apart from the agriculture sector annexed 271,000 services, which is the maximum in last 10 months and the US employment rate states that the rate of the jobless population fell down at a two-year low by 5%, which sounds good for the US economy. The US Central bank heartily welcomed the entire data and the investors hiked the bets. A 70% of December rate hike probability, because of the US employment rate was shown by the Futures market, which is 58% more than data released before the report.

Fed officials suggested a very low bar for a rate hike, and that they do not prefer job rates to drop any further. Probably, it would take a massive destructive blow in financial markets during November hiring process.

The US central bank has been holding rates of interest to almost zero level since last seven years. It has made clear that the December rate hike is certainly waiting on tables.

Charles Evans, President of Chicago Federal Reserve Bank gave a statement, which said the market conditions are favorable for the hike, and that the real phase of the economy seems much better now as the US employment rate shows growth. While, James Bullard, Chief of St. Louis said at an event that, adding the models of the economy suggests that the fall is unemployment rate is expected to drop low at 4%. “The ability to offset spillovers from adverse developments in foreign economies with conventional policy is constrained, suggesting greater caution than normal� Lael Brainard, Governor of Fed told a conference sponsored by the International Monetary Fund.

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Leadership Insights

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alent On The Way Keeps Problems Away The Skills gaps breeding in diversified industries threaten to sustain the stagnations of payrolls and average American’s living standards.

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In a sheer contrast to high unemployment and economic malaise holding Europe and the Unites States, emerging markets and new venture capitals continues to have a relatively real form of market growth that has brought a shortage of specialized talent and senior executives with it.

This potent mix can make establishing and handling a talent base in new ventures and emerging markets a tough challenge. But, due to an evergrowing segment of revenue from such emerging markets and newer ventures that are responsible for filling the treasure chest of global businesses, addressing the issue of talent management has become more

efficient and prepared with state-ofthe-art skills.

Matter of Growing Concern Talent has become a significant factor for an organization that aims to stay ahead in its league. As per the reports of the World Economic Forum, by 2030, in order to sustain the growth of the economy, 25 million employees will be added in the United States and 24 million employees will be added in Europe. Also, almost all countries and industries will require a substantial amount of increase in the average percentage of the workforce having

Leaders and top executives are now coming to realize that constructing a strong pool of talent is currently the major and significant priority for the success of their company, and also the fact that they have a more pivotal role to play in turning the thoughts to reality, significant than ever.

In the 20th century, individuals learned marketing skills and managed to achieve prosperity in few ways.

The first part indicates job. By promoting employees, organizations enabled them to progress onto a higher level job role. Career leaders who were linked to seniority and skills were negotiated by unions, and they merged with employers at an industry level or occupational level to host training programs like an apprenticeship. This system effectively ensured an adequate flow of fresh talents and skills that were

highly educated employees.

Leaders and top executives are now coming to realize that constructing a strong pool of talent is currently the major and significant priority for the success of their company, and also the fact that they have a more pivotal role to play in turning the thoughts to reality. Billions of fortunes are at stake in the company. At least for the upcoming two decades, ability to appeal, develop, and retain skills and talent will remain to be a major competitive benefit. Responding to these latest imperatives, most organizations will require a substantial

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improvement in the way they handle talent.

Countries having highest business potentials like India and China pronounce talent competition the most. The skill gap along with variation in economic densities makes the development of talent pipeline an important issue, forcing organizations to start recruiting from nemesis and reinforcing the ultimate vicious rounds of salary inflation and high turnovers.

A survey on global talent management by NGA shows that 87% of employees believe that for the success of their companies over the upcoming years, talent identification would play a pivotal role, on the other hand 34% of employees did not regard to having a talent management program at all.

Decisions such as global hiring freeze or blanket cost-cuts made by companies may turn out as sensible decisions in markets and ventures suffering turbulence due to economic malaise, but they are also inexplicable from the market perspective, which is growing every year by 8%.

Let the Numbers Speak According to a research led by McKinsey & Company on Talent 30

management, 19% of senior managers feel that their company recruits highly talented individuals, 3% of senior managers think that their company develops individuals effectively and quickly, 8% agree that their company retains high performers, 3% conclude that their company removes low performances and 16% state that the company keeps a record of low and high performers. The overall result ends up at the fact that most of the companies are very poor at talent management. In the same research, 49% of corporate officers of highperforming companies strongly agree that enhancing the talent pool comes in their list of the top three priorities, whereas, only 30% of corporate officers belonging to low-performing companies believe the same.

A survey on global talent management by NGA shows that 87% of employees believe that for the success of their companies over the upcoming years, talent identification would play a pivotal role, on the other hand 34% of employees did not regard to having a talent management program at all.

Similarly, in a survey conducted on 1,100 workers in the United Kingdom, 88% of the workers mentioned the strong fact that they believe in hiring and retaining right individuals in an organization at the right time and the right place.

A joint survey by Harvard Business Review states that in the United States, 18% of organizations claim

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to be settled on the verge for winning talent war, 72% of organizations portray talent management as an endless conflict in which they are neither going to make any profit nor lose, and 10% suggest that the talent battle was winding down for their enterprise in defeat.

unemployed citizens and workers of the United States that, 55% of people surveyed report that they are constantly under pressure to cultivate additional skill requirements in order to succeed in their future or current job roles, 21% out of them say that they have learnt latest skills through training provided by their companies in last five years, and 6% conclude that they have participated in training via informal mechanisms and podcasts.

Aspect Where the Main Problem Lies: Skills Gap The desire of President to expand work opportunities for American employees is a noble one. For years, the United States has indeed failed to position ambitious workers take benefit of economic well-being. But the significant driver of that fiasco, for which both policy makers and The major threat to the competitiveness of the United States is the erosion of the American workforce’s skills base. businesses have a measure of accountability, is not a subject of cash for coaching.

The major threat to the competitiveness of the United States is the erosion of the American workforce’s skills base. This happens especially in the case of middle-skills work profiles, which are generally defined as those jobs that require training and education beyond a diploma course accounted for less than four years in high school.

A survey led by Accenture on 1,008

While workers are taking the responsibility to cultivate their own skills, they are not receiving a better guidance from their employers about a number of skills, which would work for them as an advantage. As a result, employees tend to focus barely on nurturing technical skills. Some individuals have upgraded their other skills that are currently in demand like analytics and problem solving.

The Time When Corporate World Enters Dilemma Talent has always been a subject of great significance, but it is becoming critical increasingly as various organizations are performing very difficult, knowledge-based task while operating globally. This in return has developed a condition where talent performance has a major significance on the end line. Giants like Siemens, Lafarge, Google, L’Oreal, and Schneider Electric, have designed their own internal programs for leadership developments that

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often consist of an assignment based on overseas to promote and nurture emerging markets’ most promising leaders.

Google is an exemplary example of an organization, which has done a remarkable job of recruiting and training individuals possessing crucial knowledge skills. The company requires a skilled workforce to show a great performance, so they translate their requirement in a form of communication about the talent categories they are looking forward

working on their pet projects.

Employees utilized this time by coming up with various new business projects and ideas. They have established a work environment, which fits people’s talent in the organization, and this is how they have managed to attract so many talents to work for them. This idea not only allows them to execute their business strategy, but also to cultivate and nurture their strategies based on their employee skills and capability to fascinate great talents from all over.

Bridging the Skills Gap

Giants like Siemens, Lafarge, Google, L’Oreal, and Schneider Electric, have designed their own internal programs for leadership developments to and the job roles they provide.

Further, the company identifies significant positions and roles, where they can differentiate themselves from their rivals based on performance factors. Google makes sure that the right candidates are filled in those positions. This is a very important part of the entire process of recruitment and selection. During the process of selection, the company ensures that the ability to develop the immediate key skills, which are required for the job role are tested.

Google in a similar manner to that of 3M MMM, decades ago started providing 10-15% of free time to everyone in order to spend time 34

How to get rid of this chronic weakness? For a start, employers need to take the reign in their hands. Few American businesses have efficiently established a proper understanding of how they are dependent on the skilled labor supplies to ensure their own competitiveness. Organizations poach talent from training providers and each other, rather than trying to develop on their own. Businesses nowadays are thinking on a shortterm basis by relying for talent on the spot, rather than developing talent pipelines in order to ensure their competitiveness for a longer duration of time. Organizations provide less transparency as to what they currently need or anticipate requiring from their employees in the future, and they tend to invest a very less amount in training and helping the educators who help them to recruit talent.

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The Skills gaps breeding in various local labor markets and diversified industries threaten to sustain the stagnations of payrolls and average American’s living standards; this therefore actively contributes to increasing income inequality. In an effort to bridge the skills gap, American businesses must look forward to taking a long-term and sustained approach to developing talent. Businesses and educators must collaborate to revise the circular to help students prepare for success after finishing their graduation.

Policy makers should draft a policy environment, which is contributing to training Americans to occupy the skills that are high in demands. If these three groups, namely policy Countries having highest business potentials like India and China pronounce

Whether the talent is best internally developed or recruited. The possible need for developing the right talent in an organization to implement business strategies is growing. A more interactive bond is formed between the method how a particular talent is managed & trained and the organizations’ strategic choices. The reason why often business strategies collapse is because they are highly mistaken as they assume that a company can fetch the right talent to perform in a certain manner on the spot when strategy requires. All too often companies fail to develop or attract it, and as a matter of fact, the strategy falls flat. Harnessing the skills according to an organization’s need to implement strategies and the scheme for recruiting, hiring, and managing critical talent is the main priority of an HR with respect to talent management.

talent competition the most. makers, businesses, and educators work together in a collaboration to eradicate the problems arising in the form of the skills gap, both workers and businesses would gain advantage from the rise in the competitiveness of America.

Arriving Towards the End It is very significant to learn about the steps that a company can take in order to attract and hire a right talent for a particular job role.

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answers

questions 38

“ I think our HR is driving away potential candidates.”

A Reader Writes My workplace is relatively small as compared to a big organization. We have a small office having strength of 25-30 employees, but all are hard working and provide excellent results.

We have grown a lot in a very short time.

The only hassle that is coming in our way is, in order to boost the growth and productivity of our company; we need more skilled and right candidates who can complete their task efficiently. The recruiter of my company and all of us in a team who work along with her are trying to work harder over job postings, but something is certainly missing due to which we aren’t able to attract the right talent. What do you think is probably going wrong?

Answer Dear reader, don’t take it in a wrong manner, but the only problem why your company isn’t able to attract the right candidate for a job is because most probably your jobs postings aren’t attractive. According to what I have

experienced, job postings requires excellent marketing skills, and should be treated as no less than some product kept for marketing and sales.

They should fascinate people to get excited about working with you. I will give you an example,

“Opening for a Content Writer in our international firm.

This is a GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY for you” “Required PHP developer, 1 year for Jr. PHP developer, and 2 year for Sr. PHP developer.

Come work for us”

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job postings result in the exact opposite manner of what they are supposed to do.

These are dull, flat, incomprehensible, and dense. Descriptions like this are usually a “Coordinate sign that the ones who with applicable are posting these have business areas to lost the entire sight of define/implement the significance behind remediation the point of posting. activities” Your job postings must Is this exciting? look interesting; the Will you bother yourself candidates need not to scroll down to check have to float through a stout jargon and what salary will is this company providing you same old buzzwords.

I would recommend with? If I was in your place, I would say a flat three things. First, try excellent marketing no! techniques to sell the This is the example job to a right candidate. of how majority Let the candidate of companies are imagine the perks of doing job postings working at the role nowadays. Poorlyyou are providing, written, described in a the workplace culture worst manner possible, he will experience, and resembling worst etc. This would tempt typed internal manuals the candidate to look from some of the most forward to working with bureaucratic company you. in the world. Such

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questions

“Once in a lifetime opportunity for you.

Work for us. We want a social media executive who can also work as content writer/copyrighter”

Second, you need to stop with the gibberish descriptions. Write in a simple and clear language, which is fine, descriptive, and desirable to read.

It won’t be wrong if your postings are a bit conversational or relatively informal.

Please the candidates through your exemplary marketing skills.

Third, find out why an individual would be enthusiastic about taking up with this job, and explain that. It is possible that your job opportunity can change the life of a student, or give them a chance to be trained under a successful mentor, there are endless possibilities. Let the candidates know everything by talking briefly like a normal person and in result they will understand the baseline and come to you.

“laughing ducks and roaring lions” my teammates can’t work together!

A Reader Writes I work as a product manager in a company that has workforce of 50. My team is relatively small with six members in it. My teammates are strong-willed and hardworking. They always tend to finish their task before the deadline. As they say successful companies are built on hard teamwork and a strong team, I sometimes feel that many a times due to clash of too many ideas our plan doesn’t ends up well. They are all great at their individual tasks but when it comes to working together it sometimes gets messed up and in result they end up getting separated. My boss constantly pressurizes me to get them to work together and produce the desired results by meeting our goals. I believe my teammates have their own professional preferences and goals, but I want them to team up with me and lead towards the target I wish to finish before the deadline with maximum results. I don’t want to them to think I am some kind of a domineering boss by forcing my plans on them. How am I supposed to make it work?

Answer Dear Reader, I understand your dilemma. First of all, you should throw away unnecessary guilt-trips out of your system.

You are the in-charge of them and lead

your team because of your leadership capabilities. You are the leader, surely you must plan everything in accordance with what your teammates would prefer, but at

the end of the day the decision is yours on what to implement and what not to. I will give you simple and effective tips on how you can pull on your teammates together

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Look at other successful team models and build a strong prototype of your team based on it. Ask the leader of any successful team on how they do it.

Implementing the same on your team may or may not work but it will have a great benefit.

Call a team meeting and address your issues with them, they will surely understand.

Reward your team for their efforts and hard

“I AM A PARTYPOOPER?�

I Hate attending office parties!

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work as it boosts their employee morale and engagement. Create a culture in your team that promotes the effort of risk-taking. Draft common goals, which your teammates will collectively agree on.

Learn about your teammates, know their weakness and strength, and help them. This way they will turn out to be more productive, they will figure out meaning in their work and they will help you in pulling the entire team

answers

questions

and work towards a common goal.

together. Address your teammates about the significance of helping each other during higher workloads for team.

Embrace the methods of collaboration via tech tools and technologies that can get your teammates to work together.

Set clear goals and expectations. Try to come out as social, take your team out once in a month for lunch, dinner, or some nearby getaways.

A Reader Writes My office is hosting a grand Christmas celebration. We have all received an email regarding time, venue, dress code, etc. I have just joined this organization three months back. Although I love the prospect of everyone coming together and celebrating the festival, I am particularly not a fan of attending parties, especially office holiday parties. I would rather

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enjoy eating Christmas cakes and cookies with my family and friends and drinking punch during that cold Christmas winter night.

When it comes to celebrating parties with co-workers, I feel a bit too uncomfortable and less enthusiastic. There are too many people whom I know enjoy celebrating parties with co-workers, in fact they consider it as one of the perks offered at their workplace culture, but I am not the one. What am I supposed to do? Shall I skip it? Would it project me in a wrong manner?

Answer Dear Reader, attending office holiday party can surely be considered as a great move, especially when you have recently joined.

Such parties offer you a chance to mix up with your co-workers and people from other departments such as managers, directors, CEOs, etc. You might consider it as an optional treat, but your HR managers might be keeping a track of it

and the party might be mandatory unofficially.

Such opportunities can be taken as a chance to increase your visibility in front of the people who matter to you from career prospective.

You can take advantage of such parties by talking and introducing yourselves to people on a higher level, which normally you don’t run into easily. At the end of

the day you might end up having fun rather than getting bored.

And no, of course there is no pressure on you to attend it and no one will think wrong about you. But, consider it just as a couple of fun office hours to attend and go for it. If you aren’t feeling well in party you could easily leave early but at least make an appearance that’s what I will suggest.

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answers

questions

“All I do is work.�

Hello Boss, GIVE ME A BREAK!

A Reader Writes My coworker and I work over specialized projects in our company. Our team is made up of two of us and our director, but he is not specialist in our field. So, my coworker, Elise, recently returned after her short term maternity leave and requested to keep her work schedule five days a week and between 10am to 3pm, which she was immediately approved of. So this means her standard work hours are down by 60%. At the strike of 3pm, she is out of the office, she is not carrying any important client materials home, she is not going through any kind of online research and never reverts back any emails or work related calls once she leaves.

This might be good for her, but then the entire work load is getting laden on me. I have to work through lunch hours, late night after office work hours, early morning before work hours, workrelated travels have increased for me and what not. I am finding myself very irritated on Elise for behaving in a highly unprofessional manner and dumping the entire work on me. On many occasions I have explained her that I cannot continue with your work like this but she always ends up with excuses. I cannot let the work

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suffer due to this, because if a client chooses to wrap up with us, then there are higher chances that I may end up losing my job.

I addressed my situation to my employer, he seems to agree with my issue, but apparently he tells me that the HR wants to portray our company as family friendly. When I asked him to employ a part-timer on Elise’s behalf he gave me a baffled look. Previously, I used to love my job but now I hate it more than anything. I have applied for a job at other companies. What do you suggest?

Answer Dear Reader, First you need to calm down and try not to be frustrated with Jane.

It is true that she has placed you in a difficult situation, but in reality the one who is mainly responsible for this is your boss.

He should’ve agreed to reduce his team’s resources only after making necessary adjustments. What

Elise asked for is reasonable; your boss is the one who dropped the ball.

Secondly, you should clear your issues with your HR manager about your unsustainable conditions. Probably, your manager might need to have a word on this to their own manager, and may be the manager can

point that if you leave, they might have to bring someone else to replace you, which means waste of time as the new replacement might need to learn everything from the start.

If still it isn’t working, you have the choice for a job change.

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answers

questions

“All Work, No Play” and I am already a DULL BOY!

A Reader Writes The holiday season is here, I was supposed to be taking eight days off for a vacation starting from yesterday. My leave was sanctioned by my boss two months ago, the arrangements had been made according to the work cycle, and my trip was booked. I had done my best to finish my work and get almost all tasks covered before I leave.

However, day before yesterday, my boss came to me and announced that I cannot go as I haven’t covered the task as far along as he had hoped. It is almost impossible to finish the entire month’s load in just limited amount of time but I still attempted and finished everything from my side keeping minimal amount of bother and stress for those coworkers who are left behind.

A little amount of my work was left to be covered by a coworker while I am away. A day before my departure, my boss said either I cancel my plans, or be available during the office hours even on trip to finish off my remaining work, or I can hire a freelancer to finish my tasks while I am out and pay him/her from my pocket.

I was left with no way to save my vacation and had to let it go waste. Now I am sitting here at my desk and wondering, how can a person with professional responsibility manage to take some time off for personal holidays and trips? For this exact reason I haven’t taken a single holiday apart from the official ones in last two years.

Every time I try to plan a week-off, more work and responsibilities seem to burden me up, and then I have to skip my idea of vacation. What am I supposed to do?

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Answer Dear Reader, I empathize with you. Well, a real employer is the one who understands the importance of time off.

When you notified your boss about your leave, were there any kinds of agreements made between you and your manager about the amount of work you are supposed to complete before you leave? It is possible that your boss might have discovered that you simply didn’t meet the terms of agreements, which are the only reasonable justification that I can conclude for your boss not allowing you to take time-off for vacation.

But, after I go through your issue I can bet that is not the problem, because the suggestion about freelancer from your money is totally absurd.

Some jobs, by nature are made in a way where you cannot take a time off by making accommodations , no matter how long have

you been planning for it in advance. This depends upon your boss. A good boss is the one who recognizes the significance of timeoff for hard-working employees, not only because taking timeoff can get you more focused in work and boost your productivity, but also it shows that a prominent employee may not last in an organization where the work culture does not support the importance of after work quality of life.

If I would have been in your place, I would have tried addressing my issues to boss in this way, “Since last two years I haven’t been able to take quality time-off due to back-breaking work schedule. It has been impossible for me to get some time away for myself, and this is certainly not sustainable for a longer period of time.

Can we discuss and arrange stuff so that

with confidence unlike other times I can actually plan a decent amount of time off without any last minute cancellation?”

Sometimes, our bosses are so caught within the rush of day-to-day work schedule that they need reminder to take a step back and have a look at needs like this.

By bringing the issue in front of your boss, you can dig out some great solution that can be beneficial for everyone.

But if you feel that you aren’t confident enough to address this issue in front of your boss, your psychological health may start degrading slowly until one day you will just jump out of your chair and run down the building screaming all along.

You need to make your decisions wisely, and if still the problems persist, I suggest this is certainly not a good employer and you should look forward to a job change.

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Self-management is the recipe for employee freedom It’s not that there’s no manager, it’s just that everyone is a manager.

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M

anagement is the most costconsuming activity of any organization. Every individual engaged in management, starting from team leaders, to department heads, and vice presidents, all are supervising other people’s work. It’s not that managers aren’t hardworking; they put in a lot of efforts in their work, they are not the problem. The root of the problem is the management model that is followed by loads of organizations. Majority of organizations around the globe follow hierarchical organization structure.

Hierarchical structure is also referred as “tall systems” where there are many layers of people between top management and workers. Why not try out flat organizational structure instead?

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First, in a hierarchical organizational structure, suggestions and decisions have to be communicated through various layers of vice presidents and managers between top management and employees.

The managers will supervise the employees, and as the company becomes bigger, it will require managers to supervise other managers. Suppose each manager’s salary is approximately three times the average salary of employees.

Direct management cost will be 33 percent of total payroll, which is very expensive. While in a flat organizational structure there might be a single layer of managers between top management and the employees. It is easier for employees to present their views and suggestions to the

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top management in flat structure.

Second, the typical hierarchical structure will increase the risk of taking disastrous decisions.

Sooner or later, anyone can be the reason of a royal screw-up, if you give monarchlike authority to someone. The strongest managers are sometimes not aware about the forefront realities. And often, decision made considering the normal scenarios may not work for real or worst case scenarios. As the authority of the person gets bigger, number of people challenging the decision becomes lesser.

In a flat organizational structure there might be a single layer of managers between top management and the employees.

Third, any decision has to pass through multiple approval layers when multitiered management structure is involved. These layers may result in slower responses to decision The hr digest Magazine [January 2016]

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employees. Employees need approval for each and every expenditure they make to get the right tools for work. Such tall structure narrows the authority of individuals and shrinks the scope of faster development. making. More often, managers seem to make the decision making process slower instead of speeding it up.

Biased managers are yet another hindrance to decision making. A single person can manipulate or kill a new idea in a hierarchy, due to his/her biased interests.

Lastly, there’s the cost of domination.

The hierarchical structure steadily disempowers the first-level

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There are certain assumptions related to the structure of organizations being hierarchical by default.

• Hierarchy is necessary to succeed. People prefer to fail in a conventional manner rather than to succeed unconventionally.

• People who take decisions are of higher status than those who implement the decisions.

• Organizations that don’t follow the normal hierarchy structure have

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more probability to fail.

Many companies prove that these assumptions are totally mistaken.

Second Chance, a group that helps reduce homelessness has been very successful using the flat organizational structure. But, what if this structure works only for not-for-profit organizations? That’s not the case. Have a look at the list of companies that are really successful even after having flat structure.

More than 20% of world’s website use WordPress Platform, this is one of the top internet companies. And still, Wordpress’ parent company Automattic uses a flat structure.

It only employs a few hundred individuals, who can work remotely.

GitHub is another example of companies using flat organizational structure.

A popular gaming company, Valve, which makes Half Life, Portal and many more games is famous for not having bosses at

all. And 37Signals has a similar structure as Automattic. They create software that enables distributed collaboration like Basecamp and Ruby on Rails. Flat structure can also run a huge manufacturing firm with thousands of employees.

Take an example of

W.L. Gore; it is one of the most successful firms around the globe.

They manage more than 10,000 employees with only three levels in their organizational structure. Firstly, there is a democratically elected CEO, then a few functional heads,

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and then are rest of the employees. Its CEO Terry Kelly states that, “It is better to rely on a broad base of people and leaders with common values and who feel personal ownership for the overall growth of the organization. These individuals will work much better than any single dominant leader. ”

Morning Star’s mission is to create a company where all the members will be self-managing professionals, communicating and coordinating their activities with their colleagues, customers, suppliers, and other industry participants.

At the core of Morning Star’s unconventional yet effective management model It is better to rely is the simple idea of freedom. Rufer says, on a broad base of “If people are given people and leaders enough freedom, they will be drawn to with common what they actually like values. contrasting to being pushed to what they Let’s take a closer have to like. So, they look at Morning Star’s will individually do management structure. better as they do what Morning Star is world’s they like.” Employees major tomato processor, at Morning Star firmly each year processing believe that “If people 25% to 30% of the tell you what to do, you tomatoes in the United are a machine.”

States. The company How does being selfwas started by Chris managing professional Rufer in 1970, who benefit an employee? is still its President.

Here’s how.

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More initiatives: To define roles broadly is the key to initiatives at Morning Star. Individuals get the authority to act, and get recognition whenever they help others.

Morning Star is driven by reputational capital.

Whenever an individual has some advice to improve another part of the organization, it will increase his reputational capital.

It is better to rely on a broad base of people and leaders with common values and who feel personal ownership for the overall growth of the organization

More proficiency: Morning Star’s management model encourages employees to expand their skills. An individual working at the packaging unit might also have knowledge about microbiology. Everyone The hr digest Magazine [January 2016]

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regular intervals. They can sense those changes to better serve their mission and can act accordingly.

More Unity: takes responsibility for the quality of their work. There’s no boss to take the blame in case something goes wrong.

More flexibility: Rufer says, “The self-management model enhances flexibility and speed.�

When people are free to act, they will come up with changes that need to be done to the organization at some

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When you fragment the pyramid structure, much of the poison is drained out of the organization. In flat organization structure, there are no bosses to please or no opponents to drag down. As there is no competition for promotion, the backstabbing part is eliminated. All your energy is diverted to your work, which results in delivering the best outcome.

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Clearer udgement: The decision makers at the top might not have a clear idea about the forefront situations. All the data and analysis can never beat the judgement of first-hand experience. As the doers and thinkers are same, the judgement gap is fulfilled.

Decisions thus made are more timely and wiser.

More loyalty: Many colleagues at Morning Star have previously worked for the competitors, but the reverse rarely happens.

Even majority of temporary workers are also loyal.

During summers, when tomatoes come off the vine, Morning Star employs 800 seasonal employees for the processing plants.

Out of these employees,

If people are given enough freedom, they will be drawn to what they actually like contrasting to being pushed to what they have to like

90% return every year. The company also trains them in self-management which results in higher employee engagement even in the temporary employees.

People usually prefer

the familiar and do not accept the change until they can envision it. And it will take time, energy and passion for already established hierarchical structures to accept the flat ones. But the example of Morning Star clearly conveys that

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management is not the task of a handful people but responsibility of all.

It will take time, energy and passion for already established hierarchical structures to accept the flat ones.

However, as the work easily gets distributed due to digital technologies, and we enter a social era, flat organizational structure will become more common. There are strong reasons for treating people with respect, and providing self-sufficiency in business.

It’s time to redefine management.

And to start with, why can’t everyone be a chief?

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Training & Development Best Training and Development companies of 2016

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Training & Development

Training and Development is an aspect of Learning. May it be for the employer or the employee, the process of Learning is never-ending.

Learning happens all the time, everywhere, even when you’re not fully conscious about it. Learning can be incidental when you make some mistakes and later improve it because you learned something without thinking about it or meaning to. And, intentional learning happens when you participate in activities with a motto to learn something out of it.

Employee training and development is the responsibility of the company. Employee development is a combined responsibility of management and the employees.

The management should provide the efficient resources and environment to support the development needs of the individuals.

You can look for a training partner for a particular department and hire them to deliver their most effective programs to the employees.

But, how would one search for a training company that excels in every aspect right from IT to Sales and Leadership? Hire the best training company for every aspect or department of your business.

Here we provide a list of top training companies based on our research, analysis, experience, and expertise of many learning organizations. It will help you choose the right training partner according to your specific requirements.

How to provide the best training to enhance talent within your company?

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It’s all to do with the training: You can do a lot if properly trained.

1

IT industry

Some of the selection criteria for the best training partner for IT industry, CTU Training solutions (Pty) Ltd are mentioned here:

Innovation and Leadership in IT training.

Range of IT training and delivery methods offered.

Growth potential and size of the company.

Geographic reach Strength of clients CTU Training solutions (Pty) Ltd, symbolizes highest level of proficiency and expertise in

providing technology training. They have developed this competence through adapting multiple methodologies across 15 sites in Africa and South Africa. The company has a skills development plan to address the employees’ skill gap to gain empowered human capital. The CTU corporate division gives training and development to government, SMME’s, corporate organizations, technology partners and individuals too. It provides skills improvement training in 16 campuses worldwide. It holds countless awards which highlights their dedication in training and developing quality ICT professionals at multiple levels in IT.

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Training & Development

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2

Learning Portals

Some of the selection criteria for the best training partner for Learning Portals, BizLibrary are mentioned here:

Commitment to corporate training industry Industry impact, innovation, and visibility Number of clients Geographic reach Company growth potential

BizLibrary provides online employee eLearning solutions. This content library involves plenty online training videos for employees on all business training topics such as leadership, management, communication skills, sales, customer service, desktop computer skills, compliance training, and more. BizLibrary has won several awards like Brandon Hall Awards, Top 20 Learning Portals, and Best of e-Learning Awards for providing consistent e-Learning solutions for employees.

and size

3

Content Development

Some of the selection criteria for the best training partner for Content Development, Tata Interactive Systems are mentioned here:

Breadth and depth of subject matter expertise Ability to develop and deliver various types of content Quality of clients

Tata Interactive Systems is a part of Tata Group, a major business corporation based in India. TIS have a global reach and provide comprehensive learning consulting services. Since 25 years of its operation, it has worked with 70+ companies among Fortune 500 listed companies. TIS is excellent at providing innovative learning solutions for clients business needs.

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Training & Development

4

Workforce Development

Some of the selection criteria for the best training partner for Workforce Development, Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) are mentioned here:

Ability to develop and deliver customized training services Breadth and depth of subject matter expertise Quality of clients Company growth potential

Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) was started in 1963 as Ohio’s first community college. Tri-C has been providing affordable, highquality education and programs to 900,000+ members since more than 50 years. Tri-C offers 1,000+ credit courses in each semester in over 140 technical and career programs and arts curricula. Additionally, 600+ non-credit workforce and professional courses are presented each year.

and size

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5

Gamification

Some of the selection criteria for the best training partner for Gamification, BreakAway Games are mentioned here:

Company growth potential and size Quality and number of clients/ users Features of the gamification product/service Awards recognition

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Competitive differentiation BreakAway Games is recognized as an industry leader in the development, design and deployment of serious games. They incorporate learning theory, human factors, and engineering into their games. They create games for education purpose and training and evaluation. They develop entertainment and gamebased technology. And provide tools and game-based solutions for real-life problems.

Outsourcing

Some of the selection criteria for the best training partner for Outsourcing, Pearson Learning Solutions are mentioned here:

provides educational resources and business data through Financial Times Group. People from all age group across 70+ countries engage in learning from Pearson resources.

Ability to deliver various types Pearson partners with educational of training services institutes, government agencies, organizations, and corporations to Strength of clients deliver effectual solutions aligned to Company growth potential and their learning and development goals.

Pearson’s professional training offers size digital content management, product Geographic reach development, online training material, Pearson Learning Solutions is world’s and online tutoring. leading learning company, which The hr digest Magazine [January 2016]

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Training & Development

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7

Sales Types of service offering

Some of the selection criteria for the best training partner for Sales, ValueSelling Associates are mentioned here:

Strength of clients served ValueSelling Associates is based in Rancho Santa Fe, California. It has created the methodology preferred by sales executive across the globe, ValueSelling Framework. It has helped FORTUNE 1000 business-tobusiness sales organization compete and triumph in a market full of similar products and services.

Industry impact and recognition on sales training industry Innovation in market of sales training Company growth potential and size

8

Leadership

Some of the selection criteria for the best training partner for Leadership, Harvard Business Publishing are mentioned here:

Thought leadership and influence Range of audiences served Breadth of programs Offered delivery methods Experience serving the market Industry innovation and recognition Harvard Business Publishing partners with global organizations

and governments for creating worldclass leadership development solutions for employees at all levels of management. They control thought leadership, management insights, and proficiency of Harvard Business School faculty and review authors to deliver solutions that address today’s business requirements. Their approach of creating leadership development solutions follows a mutual process that is customized to the specific client needs. For more than 20 years, Harvard Business Publishing has delivered innovative and technology-oriented solutions that fetch significant business results.

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Training & Development

9

Authoring Tools

Some of the selection criteria for the best training partner for Leadership, Adobe Technology are mentioned here: Leadership and innovation Features of the Authoring Tools Focus of the company on authoring platforms Number and strength of clients or users Company growth potential and size Adobe technology has influenced many devices and systems including Smartphone app, games, videos, digital magazines, websites or may it be some online experience.

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Adobe’s tools and services enable customers to create excellent digital content, deploy it across devices, and optimize it based on user data.

Adobe helps business to strengthen their communication, promote their brands, and achieve ultimate business success through combining digital media creation and datadriven marketing in their solutions.

So here are the best training companies to help you foster your organizational growth. We hope it might be helpful when you come across the need to take help of a training partner to improve some particular aspects of your organization.

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Cover Story the world of HR Software Systems When Anna Steffeney got pregnant with her second child in 2012, she wanted to ask the HR representative at the company she worked at about taking a few months of parental leave. Steffeney wanted to give the same experience to her second son as she did to her first child when she was in Germany and she and her husband got a full year of paid family leave.

But little did she know that there was a glaring difference in parental leave policies in Europe and the United States. The HR representative could at best offer her mental health services. Moreover, it came as a surprise to her that he colleagues thought she should have rather hidden her pregnancy for as long as possible.

Three years after quitting her job over her own maternity leave, Steffeney is set to provide a European-style parental leave experience in its very own American way. LeaveLogic, an early-stage tech startup cofounded and led by her, offers parental leave management software to major American corporations. By the end of last year, it covered over 20,000 employees at two companies.

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LeaveLogic, an early-stage tech startup cofounded and led by Anna Steffeney, offers parental leave management software to major American corporations.

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Cover Story LeaveLogic Most companies explain family leave policy in a PDF document written in legalese that can only leave employees with more questions than answers. Netflix offers unlimited leave for a year; Facebook offers 17 weeks with pay and $4,000 cash, yet most U.S. workers have no such luxury. Addressing family leave is something a lot of American companies have been working on for years, but that is usually from a policy perspective. Corporate motherhood is seen in negative light due to lack of corporate culture and lack of information. Your colleagues would suggest you to hide the baby bump than embrace corporate motherhood.

Every time a company loses an employee, it costs 1.5 to three times the amount of the person’s salary to replace and retrain the employee.

To give new parents a more personalized experience, LeaveLogic offers a dynamic, personalized platform that provides guidance on career navigation, prenatal health and child care by integrating company policy, and state and local regulations. Employees also receive text reminders updating them on their health insurance or sign up date for the office’s lactation room.

Millennials have online platforms providing education and planning tools covering major life events, such as College Board, TurboTax, and The Knot. However, a product that could change the way large employees address parental leave didn’t exist before Steffeney launched the beta-version in 2015.

According to Harvard Business Review, forty-three percent of highly skilled women leave the workforce for a period of time, and this is due to lack of normalizing of family leave at workplace.

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It offers a dynamic, individualized platform that provides guidance on career navigation, prenatal health and child care by integrating company policy, and state and local regulations.

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Cover Story People Matter Hourly employees account for more than 60 percent of the U.S. labor force.

In addition, the workers make up eight of the ten fastest growing jobs in the U.S. Managing such a big and diverse group can be a source of aggravation.

Hourly employees tend to change jobs more frequently in search of a convenient commute, better work schedules, and in search of higher wages. They do not have the same goals as those working on commission or fixed salaries. They also tend to be younger, college-age workers who have less formal education than salaried employees. Managers are expected to solve the retention problem, attendance, counter-productive behavior such as theft, know their strengths and weaknesses and come up with creative solutions to addresses those weaknesses.

Post the Great Recession of 2008, businesses added more hourly workers to their workforce to control costs. Companies have to navigate through dicey issues such as: Do hourly employees get company-issued cellphones? How to handle compensation for employees who put in more than eight hours a day?

PeopleMatter is a paper-free hourly human resources management system that offers solutions to such pesky matters related to managing hourly workers. It offers three primary modules through web-based applications or native mobile apps with custom access controls where users can manage all of their applicant tracking, hiring, onboarding, training and scheduling.

Hire is an applicant tracking system that offers companies tools such as custom career webpages and social media recruiting. Learn lets businesses in the service industry design custom courses and online training programs for employees.

Schedule helps managers build and optimize workplace shifts on the cost thresholds and employee availability, along with integrated communication tools for last minute absences and shift swaps.

The software is used by a ton of restaurant chains including Dunkin’ Donuts, Domino’s, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Carl’s Jr., Thortons, Applebee’s as well as by convenience store chains, hotel groups, retail stores, and gas station chains around the country.

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PeopleMatter is a paper-free hourly human resources management system that offers solutions to such pesky matters related to managing hourly workers.

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Cover Story Namely

Experts predict that in the coming five years, a majority of American corporations will change the way they handle HR functions from closed, server-based systems to open, flexible, cloud-based systems. A new-class of startups aims to take advantage of that opportunity, such as ZenPayroll and Zenefits. The most notable of all is Namely which has accumulated more than 150 publicly traded companies, and more than 22,000 workers using it every week. Reigns Namely is a cloud-based human resources information system (HRIS) that handles human resources functions such as performance reviews, payroll, workflow management, employee management, and approvals. Information stored in Namely’s HRIS platform is easily accessed via any device with an internet connection, including iOS and Android OS, aside from laptop and desktop computer access.

Since it functions as a staff search engine, it allows companies to sort through their available employees to find the right candidates for projects and tasks. It’s also tied up with team-building abilities, where employers can create custom teams or generate teams based on employee reports. It allows users to readily share updates and messages with employees, all without ever having to leave the Namely platform. In addition to some of these more advances services, it also keeps track of basic information such as work histories, assess competencies, salary, and time off track and approve requests.

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Experts predict that in the coming five years, a majority of American corporations will change the way they handle HR functions from closed, server-based systems to open, flexible, cloud-based systems.

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Cover Story Jazz

In today’s corporate world, the recruiting process is broken beyond repair.

Companies receive one thousands applications or more, and yet are unable to process any interviews. They use online application systems that screen tons of people out, but simply don’t work like they used in the ‘90s because none of the people get into the actual hiring process.

These kind of automated application systems drive away talented candidates, because a lot of people in the job market won’t put up to their insulting forms and screens, when they know they have no chance of getting an interview amongst the thousands of pouring applications. These candidates, give up the online application routine and reach the hiring managers through different channels.

Jazz is designed for specialized use. It is an interview management and applicant tracking system that helps companies post jobs, screen the applicants, and manage the interview process through a real-time, centralized platform.

Hiring managers can also create their own recruiting stages using automated tool available on the platform such as reminders, follow-up, etc. It also allows companies to post job postings directly on sites like CareerBuilder and Glassdoor.

In addition to being a personalized recruiting platform, Jazz helps companies with employee referral programs, branded career sites, recruitment calendars, background checks, resume review, and much more.

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Unlike PeopleMatter and Namely, Jazz is a best-of-breed HR solution, meaning it’s designed for specialized use—in this case, applicant tracking and interview management.

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Cover Story BambooHR

Companies have now realized that talent optimization is the key to their business success. Without a single, corporate wide-integrated software to manage the people-process in businesses, it’s a very hard to do. Employees and managers should be able to go online, location information and content, share information, find skilled staff, and develop their own skills.

BambooHR is a one-of-a-kind mid-core HR solutions platform designed to help businesses with their administrative needs. The web application platform offers a central repository of all employee information such as training, salary, job title, history, benefits, and much more. Using these platform, employees can also access company documents, view and edit their personal data, and request timeoff. With different levels of custom access, managers using it can manage time off requests, generate reports based on data that is fed, and set accrual policies.

For expanded use, BambooHR integrates with many popular applications for performance management, payroll, applicant tracking and eSignatures.

Let us conclude with a simple thought: if you don’t have an integrated talent management platform yet, you should seriously think about it. These systems are not only highly valued by HR, but now highly valued by your employees as well.

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BambooHR integrates with many popular applications for applicant tracking, eSignatures, payroll, and performance management.

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Legal Hub Lessons from the Employee Classification Lawsuit: 1099 Contractors V. Employers

There is a long history of businesses that try to repudiate workers of the benefits and protections that are entitled to under the law by unfairly treating them as independent contractors, rather than employees.

Last year, we saw inevitable backlash from a few workers and regulators accusing companies like Uber, a ridesharing company which connects a livery driver and a car with a customer looking for a ride, of trampling legal interpretations and doing the same thing to thousands of drivers, couriers, and others who work for them.

Construction firms, agricultural businesses and other enterprises often classify workers as contractors to bring down their expenses by, for example, not paying workers the statutory minimum wage and overtime, and not offering compensation for on-the-job injuries, and not making social security contributions. In December 2015, FedEx agreed to pay $228 million to settle a class-action suit brought by truck drivers who said their characterization as independent contractors wasn’t right because they were required to work 10 hours a day, wore company uniforms and drove trucks that carried the FedEx logo.

The ‘1099’ workers i.e. independent contractors who file the 1099-MISC

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tax document, not the worker’s W-2, have shaped the foundation of a number of Silicon Valley’s unicorns.

If you’ve had a meal-on-wheels service from SpoonRocket, hailed an Uber, or gotten a Postmates delivery, chances are you’ve dealt with one. For those who run the company, the upsides of using 1099 independent contractors are that they’re cheap – there’s no payroll tax, workers’ company insurance, or downtime pay at any point of time involved. For independent workers, a 1099 gives them adaptability to work when they need, and stay home when they don’t.

Yet, as of late, the 1099s have begun striking back, with legal claims that allege that their organizations abused work law by classifying them as contractual

workers, yet controlling them as firmly as hourly employees. A month ago, a district court judge concurred, and conceded class-action status to a group of Uber drivers, allowing their case to move ahead.

To keep themselves from courtroom data that could crash their force, some new companies have begun using W-2 employees voluntarily.

However, the cost of 1099 workers is too enticing for most new companies, making it impossible to leave behind. Also, if judges and juries choose that the Uber model damages existing work laws, an entire host of on-demand companies could find themselves landing in a new financial bubble.

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Legal Hub temporary workers shows that work laws that were passed decades back simply don’t work in today’s on-demand startup world. Let’s be clear though, it’s not just about the working environment. This case is turning into a Rorschach test for individuals’ perspectives of the sharing economy and whether it is a power for good — or for abuse.

In the California case, a law firm based in Boston led by Shannon Liss-Riordan has brought a legal claim against Uber, battling that its drivers are illicitly paid as independent contractors and not employees.

Similarly as with most courtroom battles, this one is not just about the money. If Uber’s drivers are employees, then they are qualified for benefits and security, for example, unemployment insurance, medical coverage, and over time, that are not required to be presented to independent contractors.

Uber’s naysayers say the ridesharing company is exploiting employees by not paying the benefits of employment.

According to some, the sharing economy is destined to further increase economic disparity in the United States. Uber will become just another example of how the average American worker, especially unskilled one’s, can no more bring home the living wage or for that matter, land a job.

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technology company that matches customers and drivers, and is therefore a middleman like Etsy or eBay. With Uber, drivers are independent contractors who pay 20 percent of the ride fare to the company. The drivers pay every their expenses and get no benefits, similar to medical coverage or unemployment advantages.

However, in return, they are their own bosses – they set their own hours, and they don’t need to show up if they don’t want to. From this viewpoint, Uber is empowering drivers, permitting them to earn more money without the inconvenience of a supervisor.

In the Uber world, if you’re Uber’s CEO, you wake up each day not knowing whether your workforce will even appear. In the traditional economy, workers need to leave one place of employment to take another.

On the other hand, Uber drivers can simultaneously work for competitors like Lyft, drive for both, taking the best offer every time. It doesn’t appear like exploit when Uber needs to pay a rate that is higher to anything a rival’s to pull in. Likewise, some Uber drivers are trying to get additional cash.

Uber is something new in representative manager relations.

The sharing economy has made workforce for Uber of up to 200,000 drivers in the United States alone in past couple of years. It has all the earmarks of being a service that people like better and can more effortlessly use than taxis. You can take an Uber ride and see why, it is The hr digest Magazine [January 2016]

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simple, helpful and easily available.

Presently the courts are trying to make sense of whether Uber’s drivers are contractual workers or employers from a standard established in nineteenth century labor law. It’s a standard that has numerous varieties as the law tries to isolated laborers who need protection from independent contractors who can fight for themselves.

The State of California holds to the most liberal of definitions. In S.G. Borello and Sons v. the Department of Industrial Relations, a case decided in 1989 by the California Supreme Court, the test for whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor is whether the business holds all necessary control over the laborer.

To help carry out the test, the court has enumerated 13 more factors that indicate whether a person is an employee or contractor, such as whether there is “skill” required in the occupation.

California’s definition is quite laborerfriendly, most states require control or the right to control, a higher standard than necessary control. Under California’s definition, Uber has a difficult task, the company indicates enough standards, such as authorizing and what sort of auto you can drive, and additionally the capacity to end drivers that somebody can find that necessary control is set up, to be sufficiently specific control for Uber to accomplish its business. Under California law, if a business has the 88

ability to fire somebody freely, then the business has enough control.

Yet, this test has nothing to do with Uber’s relationship with its drivers. As another court said in a similar case including Lyft, these drivers don’t look like employees or independent contractors.

Would they like to have less flexibility about who they work for? Do they need the inability to work for other people or to preselect their rides? Given their ability to quit whenever and go to a rival or even begin their own service, do they require protection? Perhaps, yet most likely not.

So we are stuck with a complicated test that produces a result that doesn’t work with the shared economy. The weirdest bit of all is that the Uber-driver case is well on the way to have little impact.

Uber has every one of its drivers sign arbitration arrangements, which waive the privilege to bring legal claims, so this case covers just the individuals who quit subsequent to 2014 or who drove before that time. Also, the case covers just California drivers. The potential case for damages will matter little to the startup Unicorn.

This suit is not going to constrain Uber to change its practices. That is on the grounds that Uber doesn’t generally work unless its drivers have the flexibility that employees do not have.

This case highlights the outdated nature of America’s labor-laws. Let’s hope it isn’t just another issue that the courts cannot solve and the American legislatures are yet to get their hands on.

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Top Perks for 2016: Parental Leave Management?

Parental leave has been a loaded issue in the American workforce, however there is a myriad of of barriers keeping it from being more available for parents. There are various issues on the administrative level, however individual firms additionally face their own series of issues while taking care of parental leave. Much of the time, they treat all expecting parents the same, and more often the only resources accessible to mothers to-be specifically are standard mental health services, just further representing the disgrace of being a mother and having a career in the American corporate world.

A few months ago, Amazon announced revamped family leave policies to offer more paid time off for new parents, following in the footsteps of Microsoft, Netflix, and other tech goliaths. However, for parents that don’t work for such huge organizations, the alternatives are often limited. That is an issue LeaveLogic needs to eradicate.

The Seattle-based startup uses its calculation to make individualized

parental leave plans that both new parents and bosses can concede to.

While pregnant with her second youngster in 2012, Anna Steffeney needed to ask the HR manager at the tech organization where she worked about taking some additional months of parental leave. All things considered, two years prior, while working for the same organization in Germany, both she and her spouse were given an entire year of paid leave when they had their first child.

When Steffeney approached her colleagues, a majority of them advised her that she should have rather hidden her pregnancy for as long as possible.

Three years after quitting her job over her own maternity leave, Steffeney is set to give that strong, Germanstyle parental leave experience in a remarkably American way. She’s the founder and CEO of LeaveLogic, an early-stage tech startup in Seattle that offers parental leave software to major American corporations. In 2016, Steffeney estimates their software will be accessible to 25,000 employees at

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LeaveLogic uses an organization’s pre-existing policies, federal, and state laws to make a customized leave plan.

two organizations through their earlyadopter program.

Most organizations write down parental leave policy with a static PDF record written in legalese found on an Intranet site. sSeeing the dissimilarity between two attitudes that affected the logistics of how parental leave plays, Steffeny chose to accomplish something here in the U.S. to “standardize” the procedure of parental leave for employees and employers. By using LeaveLogic, companies save 63% leave by allowing their employees to self-serve their family leave plan.

related and benefits data, leave milestones, and a complete timeline of events.

Softwares like LeaveLogic can be so important to new parents who regularly feel like they are left to their own resources with regards to navigate through leaves to take care of their first child together. The basic idea behind the platform is to give employees more backing in settling on a decision that works best for them, is what is truly important.

Take Sarah Cleveland for example.

She felt compelled to go back to work soon after having her child and unsuccessfully approaching her boss “We assess that by utilizing for extra unpaid leave to stay home LeaveLogic, we can spare with her baby. Hours into her infant’s organizations 63 percent for every first day at childcare, he died. What leave by permitting representatives her story so deplorably shows is that to self-serve their leave arrangement the issue of parental leave in the data,” Steffeny says.

United States isn’t just about numbers She says that LeaveLogic uses an or a mysterious six or 12-week point organization’s pre-existing policies, when parents and infants will be federal, and state laws to make a completed separated. It’s about giving customized leave plan. Employees are parents better choice in matters such then told when they have to finish the as taking care of their newly born kids. necessary paper work or take the next In comparison to other new moms step. The dashboard gives money The hr digest Magazine [January 2016]

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Steffeny wants to empower mothers to think beyond the traditional limits of their company’s leave policies and opt for a better option from the spectrum of choices LeaveLogic offers.

Sarah knew, she was fortunate to have three months’ paid maternity leave after her son was born. A majority of parents in her circle had just weeks before they needed to leave their children to go back to work. In any case, even with three months under our belts and Karl’s (her son) neck sufficiently solid to hold himself up, she was uncomfortable with leaving him. She wanted to be his parental figure longer, until he was a little bigger. She could see how their time together in this early earliest stages was of so much important, how being with her consistently made him happier.

Not everybody agrees that businesses or workers should pay into a system that takes into consideration parental leave. Such laws send the message that other individuals are in charge of your decisions.

Steffeny brings up the imperfect rationale in that sort of considering, particularly in connection to how our economy functions. In America,

people see children as a personal choice. It’s considered to be something that ought to solely be the burden of the parents and not society at all. Yet, in the meantime we have built an economic system that requires the population to keep up or develop as one of the fundamental tenants of capitalism. This implies as a nation we will struggle to develop our economy, keep up our real-estate prices, and compete globally if we have a negative fertility rate. As a matter of fact, we have a negative fertility rate in the US since 2007.

If you’re one of only a handful few who trust that paid parental leave costs excessively, you’re wrong. Helping parents to be able to afford to stay home in some capacity to take care for their infant would cost less in the long run. Steffeny wants to empower mothers to think beyond the traditional limits of their company’s leave policies and opt for a better option from the spectrum of choices LeaveLogic offers.

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Recruitment Point

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When Traditional Hiring Approaches Are Not Enough In a recent survey by LinkedIn, it was found that 62% of American companies are looking to hire more people than they did a year ago.

That’s great news, but here’s the thing: only 44% of talent leaders will spend more on hiring than they did in 2015. Now, traditional recruiting methods are expensive, slow and don’t always promise the right candidates. Let’s say you’re like recruiting teams out there who are being asked to go the extra mile to hire the right candidate for the job. What will you do?

When it comes to assessing talent for recruitment or training and development, an HR manager has two key factors involved: How should you assess? When should you assess? Now, the WHAT question is very much context-dependent. The expertise and knowledge required to be a good project manager in an IT company are very much different from those needed to be a good paralegal in a law firm. Yet, you’ll be looking for certain universal characteristics that are associated with topperforming employees, regardless of their role or job title. The first thing you do is keep an eye out for those who have analytical skills and are problem solvers. These are the people who have good judgement and are able to get the job done. Second, you identify those who are most affable in their day-to-day interaction with their peers. And third, you want people who are eager to work hard.

Now, these are the three dimensions that define an individual’s career success and employability.

• The first relates to curiosity, decision-making styles, and IQ. • The second relates to social skills.

• The third one related to ambition and motivation.

People who are nicer and hardworking than their peers will always be in demand regardless of the project, time, and place they’re working on.

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Recruitment Point As for the HOW part, due to the ubiquity of smart devices in the last decade, there has been astronomical advances in talent identification.

There are three effective approaches that deserve recognition due to their probability to quantify individuals’ talent and predict their career success: Behavioral analytics. Some companies assess talent by monitoring dayto-day activity. For example, large call centers – where they track calls and the breaks employees take and the customer ratings for each call.

Nowadays, these methods are applied in a myriad of fields. Take a lot at companies that use email traffic to estimate revenues that their sales representative will bring in. Tracking day-to-day behavior helps generate large amount of data that organizations could use to create organizational diagnostics.

Today, this is the most common approach with the greatest potential since it helps companies identify talent internally using employee data collected for performance assessment purposes. Although, a lot of Fortune 100 companies such as PepsiCo are also analyzing employee data to create profiles of their most successful employees, which gives them benchmarks for those who are about to join the company.

Gamification. Creating IQ, fun personality tests for assessment of applicants is gamification. Applicants are told to solve puzzles or complete challenges to earn points and badges. The ultimate objective of these method is to enhance user experience and increase response rates. By offering free, entertaining tests online, as well as providing instant developmental feedback, companies can attract many thousands of engaged test takers. IKEA, Reckitt Benckiser, and Deloitte are a few of the global firms that have relied on gamified assessments to evaluate potential candidates, particularly Millennials. While, very few companies have been able to create these tests fun, more and more employers are now turning towards this approach due to the applicant pool it promises.

Web scraping. Algorithms created to look into people’s web activity and turn them into a quantitative estimate of job potential or fit. According to a recent study, this method of assessment, “web scraping,” can help employers estimate IQ and personality with around 50% of the accuracy of scientifically valid tests.

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Applicants’ digital footprints include information that they have collected and curated, such as endorsements and recommendations on sites like LinkedIn endorsements and recommendations, as well as comments, videos, and photos posted by friends, family and acquaintances. Although, these method has implications – both ethical and legal, especially when companies request applicants’ social media passwords as part of the vetting process. Twenty-three states in the U.S. have introduced or considered legislation to ban this practice. Companies should limit themselves to collecting data of applicants that is available for free on the internet.

How do these newer approaches to assessing talent compare with the more traditional ways, such as psychometric tests, reference checks, interviews, and resume and work samples? It’s still hard to say, especially in the absence of independent scientific studies confirming accuracy of the points made. In comparison to these methods, traditional assessment tests have been scrutinized by thousands of researchers over the past century.

The needed evidence will come from studies that put the same applicants through all assessment methods and measure how well each method predicts future performance at the individual, team, and organizational levels. In the future, recruiters and hiring managers will also want to consider factors such as user experience, costs, and ethics. For example, behavioral analytics may be more accurate than instinctual managerial decisions, but the daily assessment is also costly to implement (though it should save businesses money over time). If your goal is not just to predict future behaviors but also to evaluate candidates’ competence, likeability, and work ethic, traditional methods are still more informative than the innovative alternatives — at least for now.

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An Insight into Successful HR strategies of Power Players HR success stories of market leaders who strongly influence the world, from Google’s ‘Talent Management and Bridging the Skills Gap’, to Cadbury’s ‘Strategic Human

Resource Management’, to Hilton’s ‘Inclusive Market Development’, to Berkshire Hathaway’s ‘Radical Strategy’, and finally to Rolls-Royce’s ‘Standardization & Localization.

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Forward Focused and Revved Up High-performing and strong-headed big daddies of the modern corporate world, starting from Google’s ‘Talent Management and Bridging the Skills Gap’, to Cadbury’s ‘Strategic Human Resource Management’, to Hilton’s ‘Inclusive Market Development’, to Berkshire Hathaway’s ‘Radical Strategy’, and finally to Rolls-Royce’s ‘Standardization & Localization’, are moving with such a rapid pace that their product and service cycles keep evolving within months. Gone are the old times when a single product evolution had to be anticipated for years. These behemoth workforces are highly interconnected when it comes to achieving success through their high-end, ‘customeremployee’ friendly HR policies.

The information when it comes to these parent organizations is shared instantaneously. People are employed and rewarded for their exemplary working style and deep expertise.

They work on programs and projects that keep on evolving and changing continuously.

Now it’s the time when the managers are no longer in charge, instead, customers are. The modern Renaissance has changed the ability of customers to look forward towards a company not only for the quality of product or services, but also for human resource policies and employee brand strategies employed by them. The same goes with people who are looking forward to work in a company. The first thing that arrives in their mind is the HR policies and strategies employed by their future employers. Under such tough challenges nowadays, these companies have not only survived, but globally dominating the market in their respective fields. When you take a look inside the covers of these companies, which are thriving in a business environment of the modern world, you will be amazed to discover that they are managed and organized in a very different manner. They still possess a substantially obsolete HR model of ‘professional management’ and yet they have evolved into a customer-employee centric and a highly agile team.

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Practices And Policies OF Power

Sundar Pichai : We deeply

desire our services to work for everyone. And that inherently means we have to work with partners. That is the thesis underlying everything we do.

Profiles

Google Founder: Larry Page, Sergey Brin CEO: Sundar Pichai Continuously since last many years ranked as the top organization when it comes to the list of best companies to work with, the philosophy of Google is more towards an efficient talent management practices. According to them, with the right set of tools, you can fascinate the greatest talent, and bring in more sustainability and productivity in the work environment.

At times, the largesse of Google may sound excessive, but the perspective is clear and noble. The talent management practices and advancements towards bridging the skills gap are something which makes it amongst one of the top companies. The appeal, retention, management, and motivations for

employees are the reason behind the success. It also focuses on developing and handling effective management practices. Google’s time allocation model ‘70/20/10’ beats everything else. This kind of time allocation model gives Google employees a freedom of work where they can allocate their work time for creativity, imagination, innovation, and personal development. By limiting the idea of bureaucracy in the organization and offering approvals to employee ideas, Google succeeds in maintaining employee energy and passion. With such outstanding HR efforts, their leadership is highly praised across the world.

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Irene Rosenfeld : I’ve always

challenged myself and the people who work with me to take new approaches to traditional business challenges, to push the envelope and constantly ask whether our sacred cows are still producing great milk.

Cadbury Founder: John Cadbury Chairman and CEO: Irene Blecker Rosenfeld When the discussion arrives at people management, the company leads the way. Not only Cadbury is the second largest manufacturer of confectionery in the world, but it has also succeeded in bagging HR accolade by placing employees and customers in the top list of priorities. A strong HR is the backbone of this organization.

Cadbury is established on an altruistic faith system by combining balance and positivity, among life and work.

Cadbury effectively utilizes SHRM policy, Strategic Human Resource Management to oversee their workers aligned with the objective of the company in order to deliver the best shareholder performance.

The company practices an efficient resource based technique while managing its workers. The utilization of this practice has also inclined the company to adopt the Quaker tradition where employee welfare and values are prioritized. It focuses on providing various employee benefits that range from welfare rights to housing to advanced factory conditions. Cadbury’ people management policy have undeniably proven to be very effective by working between the organization’s objectives and employee needs.

Women empowerment has also played a crucial role in the company’s success.

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Hilton Worldwide Founder: Conrad Hilton CEO: Christopher J. Nassetta As they review it, ‘Working with Hilton is not just coming to work, it’s way beyond.’ The organization’s long-term and holistic approach rather than short-term and individualistic one is what wins the favor from everyone. The centralized approach towards bringing cultural diversity, well-being, and motivation of the employees and clients is one of the biggest success factors of Hilton Worldwide. Hilton focuses on maintaining a very high standard in Human Resource Management and establishing a business culture that helps everyone to cultivate and nurture careers. Hilton’s formalized approach towards Inclusive Market Development emphasizes on job satisfaction. This is done via the proper rewarding system, job enrichment, job commitment, performance related in-organization promotion & pay system, training and development programs for employees, and decision-making procedures by employees, that enhances a great work culture.

The diverse workforce, equal working opportunity, and high ethical standards drive the force of Hilton Worldwide towards the

best. The main strategy of Hilton Worldwide revolves around a central philosophy of HR systems that has three major approaches for HR strategies, namely, ethnocentric approach, geocentric approach, and polycentric approach.

CHRISTOPHER J. NASSETTA : “GOOD TO GREAT” You first have to get

the right people on the bus and get the wrong people off the bus; make sure the right people are in the right seats before you decide where you are driving the bus.

The entire system highly excels in ensuring government and corporate compliance, team member relations, professional education, training and development, where employees are trained with the right amount of skills to guarantee a longlasting competitive advantage, talent management, compensation administration, risk management, labour and legal compliance, HR information systems, HR information and communication, work planning, and HR analysis.

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Berkshire Hathaway Founder: Oliver Chace CEO: Warren Buffet As they review it, ‘Working with Hilton is not just coming to work, it’s way beyond.’ The organization’s longterm and holistic approach rather than short-term and individualistic one is what wins the favor from everyone.

The centralized approach towards bringing cultural diversity, well-being, and motivation of the employees and clients is one of the biggest success factors of Hilton Worldwide.

Warren Buffet : When a

management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.

Hilton focuses on maintaining a very high standard in Human Resource Management and establishing a business culture that helps everyone to cultivate and nurture careers.

Hilton’s formalized approach towards Inclusive Market Development emphasizes on job satisfaction. This is done via the proper rewarding system, job enrichment, job commitment,

performance related in-organization promotion & pay system, training and development programs for employees, and decision-making procedures by employees, that enhances a great work culture. The diverse workforce, equal working opportunity, and high ethical standards drive the force of Hilton Worldwide towards the best. The main strategy of Hilton Worldwide revolves around a central philosophy of HR systems that has three major approaches for HR strategies, namely, ethnocentric approach, geocentric approach, and polycentric approach. The entire system highly excels in ensuring government and corporate compliance, team member relations, professional education, training and development, where employees are trained with the right amount of skills to guarantee a long-lasting competitive advantage, talent management, compensation administration, risk management, labour and legal compliance, HR information systems, HR information and communication, work planning, and HR analysis.

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Rolls-Royce Founder: Henry Royce, Charles Rolls CEO: Warren East The company’s name is synonymous with quality apprenticeships and training programs. More than 30% of senior managers at the RollsRoyce started as a trainee-level employee. The value chain and business model of the organization are highly innovative, and they keep on showcasing evolution and transformation. The main pillars of the organization are education, training, and development. They know the significance of training in order to keep thriving in their respective field and maintain the everlasting bar of success. Rolls-Royce HR policies strongly revolve around three main systems apart from training and development, first being Porter’s Model that includes competitive rivalry, threat of entry, power of

buyers, threat of substitutes, and power of suppliers, second comes Standardization & Localization, where standardized services and products are offered in homogeneous international markets and developing the product that is linguistically and culturally appropriate to the targeted market, and the final one is recruitment policy, in which the company recruits people from various parts of the globe based on standard procedures. This ensures a cultural diversity in the organization.

Warren East : I am going to be working

with the team to add pace and simplicity into what we’re doing.

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As a matter of fact HR practices and policies improve the way employees interact by lowering the personal obstacles, which results in organization’s success, happy employees, and satisfied customers.

The way how individuals perform together, matters a lot for establishing a great organization. HR practices and policies improve the way employees interact by lowering the personal obstacles, which results in organization’s success, happy employees, and satisfied customers.

These companies know exactly how to do it, and as a result, they are thriving.

favor not having any policies at all and prefer leaving everything transparent to open interpretation as needs arise.

None of these extreme situations contribute towards a highly conducive, productive, and successful work environment. The plan that matters is the right amount and types of HR policies, practices, and strategies along with other things, which are solely focused towards a primary goalThere are various types of people, and enhancing the growth and success it doesn’t arrive as a surprise if they structure of an organization and push react in a different manner towards the it towards the best. need of an organization’s practices and policies. While some individuals prefer to have a written policy for everything, there are the others who

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Workp ace Cu ture Workplace design for Better Productivity

There lies a huge correlation between performance and work place environment at a point. Similar to all the stuff surroundings turn old with the time and in order to maintain its fresh, well-being, and periodic updates is very important. I, personally believe that employees are invigorated by a well maintained and designed workplace.Working in an environment and culture that allows employees to perform their task optimally under snug conditions is one of the fundamental requirements for a human. This definitely raises a question, ‘what is the impact of comfort level on the productivity of employees working in work environments?’ The purpose of this article is to evaluate this relationship as a support to making decisions regarding the environment at work on strategic level within the boundaries of facilities process management, with a particular concern of the thermal conditions.

Work Place Environment & Employee Performance Go Hand in Hand Workplace design is the most hyped word when it comes to trailing and improving employee performance and productivity. I would suggest, if your finance allows you to renovate your business office, you must consider yourself for a brand new layout structure options. Although most probably 70% of all offices in America have open floor and structure plans. A noteworthy research body shows that spaces having bullpen-style spaces affect the employee negativity quite negatively. To get the most of your employees and your business, evaluating the modern workplace designs is very important.

A study reveals that people choose to spend almost 90 percent of their time indoors. Additionally, at workplace employed people spend about 33

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Workp ace Cu ture Tra nsparency ca n help you take your business to a next level What if each employee ca n keep a check on their performa nce in comparison to everyone else in the orga nization on a daily basis? It would be fa natical, right? Maybe not.

Tra nsparency, the concept is all about giving the public access to all the corporate or business information like performa nce, execution pla ns a nd even the salaries.

There’s No Secret. Not Anymore.

Qualtrics is a private research firm with Radical transparency as a key component of their business philosophy. During the initial phase of the company, adapting this concept was a mere necessity; however it continues to carry the principle forward even as it grows. Mike Maughan from Qualtrics states that “Majority of companies fail because employees lose focus and get distracted looking for information.” To overcome this problem, the company decided to make all employees’ performance data available to one and all in the company. The information includes:

• Objectives and results involving returns and satisfaction target on a quarterly basis.

• Each employee’s goals for the week.

• Latest performance reviews, employee ratings and incentive structure.

• Observed success and failure stories, with self-evaluation notes.

• Career History of the company.

According to neuroscience, our brains work best when we do not need to cover up our flaws or dwell on errors.

We deliver better when we aren’t caught up thinking about who will be boss’ favourite or will be “employee of the month,” getting a swift promotion.

Instead of guessing names of people

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Workp ace Cu ture

badmouthing our work, we can stay focused with the help of such transparency. while external transparency includes revealing the information to the consumers. This results in consumer loyalty, as the company is transparent about their positive and negative impacts on the society. Receiving better knowledge of the product creates loyal customers. Company’s willingness to accept failures, help consumers establish their trust We deliver better when we aren’t caught on the company. up thinking about who will be boss’ Social media has a huge impact on the way business is favourite or will be “employee of the conducted. Many previously month,” getting a swift promotion unbeaten brands are now losing their reputation as performing employees may guide the they are not providing the details of under-performing ones by providing their product content, even when the them some methodologies to follow. customers are demanding. When consumers connect with any brand on Corporate transparency can be the social media, they expect to know categorized into internal and the positives and negatives of the external transparency. Internal business. Facebook and twitter can be transparency involves employees much more than a marketing tool for But how would employees react to such transparency? Some might take it as a guide to improve their performance while others may become conscious about their information. But somehow, this will improve their performance, resulting in a healthy competition. Well-

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brands, especially to disclose certain information before the customers find out. Such initiatives from the companies will improve the brand reputation and will prove profitable to the company itself. Gap and Zara were recently exposed for using toxic materials in their garments. People took to the facebook and twitter pages, furiously demanding change.

Ignoring such protest makes the

Receiving better knowledge of the product creates loyal customers

brand reputation worse. So it is better to listen and address their complaints

You many think how radical transparency will affect business success? The reason is, it is a key component of employee engagement.

Let’s take an example of Qualtrics and discuss the effects of adapting this concept on the company.

1. Employees have clear idea about their contribution to the company as a whole If transparency is not maintained; employees may not have a clear idea about how their work fits into the big picture. By being radically transparent, employees can identify their involvement in accomplishing company’s mission and vision. They

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Workp ace Cu ture can work accordingly to increase their input and get a better output.

2. Minimizing Distractions and maximizing focus Employees won’t be distracted, looking for information about other’s work and performance. At the commencement of each quarter, all Qualtrics employee sets observable and considerable objectives and key results. Progress and priorities of each employee are set clearly. So employees can tick their checklist and can stay fully focused.

3. Employee engagement

that employee information is clearly related to their performance, which ensures a high level of fairness. The sense of real fairness and equality can be really rewarding to their brains.

And the idea of managers not being fair can infuse negative thoughts in their minds. Every individual is ranked on the basis of performance and all the information is accessible for analysis and assessment. Thus, all employees are rewarded accordingly.

By implementing such practices, employees can take control over their career growth and will lead to increased engagement.

4. Model the strategies of the best

Such transparency increases dedication and motivation to the organization’s mission for the reason

Newbies at Qualtrics stay motivated by analyzing the achievements of the best performers. They can compare their own work with the top performers and take on The sense of real fairness and equality some strategies to excel in can be really rewarding to employees’ their work. Such mirroring is brains extremely helpful in promoting constructive work performance.

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especially in case of gossips about 5. Reward only the deserving one company’s possible layoffs. The fear of elimination distracts the employees By being radically transparent, and they cannot risk working with companies make sure that only the company anymore. This results top-performers get rewarded and in employees looking for a new job, not someone who is just good at updating their resumes along with convincing others to think that they their LinkedIn profiles. During such perform well. Besides, it would time, employer should replace the be easy to judge the consistent rumour with open communication. performers with the help of such Employees should know that they will transparency. hear it from the employer if there is something to worry. Bellow suggests Qualtrics is aware about people being to put boundaries too while being categorized into winners and losers by transparent. When the company size using this technique. And this might be increases, there might be too many a challenge for a person who is not on people who may keep their views on the list of “A players.” some matter, even when they are Matthew Bellows, the founder and not qualified to do so. Transparency CEO of Yesware has promoted radical without knowledge is not powerful. In transparency in startups. He explains such cases it can be really harmful to how to use such transparency to your the organization. After all, companies advantage. Bellows suggests keeping are not democratic, and as it the doors open, literally. He says, “If increases in size the less democratic it you and your team discuss for hours, should be. without letting in the employees, Marc Effron, from Talent Strategy they will feel left out and make Group reports that there is an absurd fear of transparency among organizations around the globe.

Transparency without knowledge is Leaders seem to be concerned not powerful that performance may degrade if an individual is told the truth about their capabilities and potential. things up. And Rumours are never However, he asks a fundamental better than the actual mess.” So, question – How long is it appropriate opt for radical transparency instead. to sugar-coat matters about their Discuss anything and everything with potential and career growth? the employees and consider their Effron also mentions that many viewpoints too. executives are really ready for stricter There comes a down point in every transparency measures. business. And anxiety is obvious when you are dealing with people’s career, The hr digest Magazine [January 2016]

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January 22, 2016 Mile High SHRM 2016 HR Conference This conference will be a great opportunity to network, exchange ideas and take a closer look at current HR challenges. You can join this unique event to equip yourself with the new way of thinking.

Venue: Hyatt DTC | Colorado

27 January, 2016 600Minutes Human Resources 600Minutes Human Resources conference provides you a great opportunity to broaden your personal network, learn about the latest trends in business, and evaluate potential partners in a structured form.

Venue: Finlandia-talo Helsinki | Finland January 29, 2016

Strategic HR Metrics & Analytics Seminar Strategic HR metrics and Analytics Seminar is designed to engage line managers and senior level executives into making strategic decisions regarding human capital needs of their organization.

Venue: London | United Kingdom 2-4 February, 2016 HR Directors Business Summit

This event will bring together pioneering HR solution providers and C-Suite HR leaders. Over 100 speakers will be present for addressing the hottest HR trends going on the industries that include business performance, strategic HR, change and OD management, social HR, HR policies, employee engagement, employment law, driving HR, and many more.

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February 10-12, 2016 Workforce Planning & Analytics Conference Workplace Planning & Analytics Conference offers you the most capable doers and smartest planners to help you commence, embed, and sustain quick talent strategy, which fits according to your organizations’ needs. For three days the speakers present in the conference will address regarding how organizations’ continuously refine their workforce plans, use analytics to enhance it, more agile talent decisions, and embed the right cross-functional partnerships and knowledge.

Venue: Atlanta, | Georgia

February 18 – November 20, 2016 2016 AHRD International Research Conference in the Americas In 2016 AHRD International Research Conference participants will gain new knowledge regarding international and innovative research data according to HR, while understanding the significant insights to distinguish key business drivers and transform them into effective human capital.

Venue: Omni Jacksonville Hotel | Florida

24 February, 2016 Future Of Work 2015 The Future of Work 2015 conference offers you an insight into leadership development ideas with deal and people in focus, strategic succession planning on how to secure future leaders, cultural and diversity change as a basis for profitability and innovation, talent sourcing and leadership in a global arena, and role of an HR professional in the profitability and efficiency.

Venue: Wyndham Grand Levent Istanbul | Turkey

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March 7-9, 2016 HR West 2016 The annual conference brings industry leaders and organizations across all sectors together, offering attendees the chance to get the ideas and solutions they need to transform their HR strategies. Meet with like-minded HR professionals for two days of outstanding learning and networking opportunities.

Learn new, practical approaches to common HR problems and return to work with a clear focus on the future.

Venue: Oakland Convention Center in Oakland California | USA 08. Mar. 16, 600Minutes Human Resources 600Minutes Human Resources conference will focus on topics regarding HR development, leadership, new approach towards effective methods and employees experience management for building a strong organizational culture, digitalization in HR processes, and flexibility in management.

Venue: Sofitel Warsaw Victoria Warsaw | Poland March 14-16, 2016, HR in Hospitality Conference

This HR in Hospitality conference attracts hundreds of labour, HR, and employment relation professionals from resorts, casinos, restaurants, hotels, cruise lines, and every sector of the industry. The HR in hospitality hosts this only one of its kind Expo showcasing HR services and products for the hospitality industry. This Expo is not just comparison shopping and literature shopping as it also provides the attendees with numerous opportunities to share and connect ideas with professionals from various industries during such events dedicated to networking.

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15. Mar. 16, 600Minutes Human Resources 600Minutes Human Resources conference will offer you a brief insight in topics related to new level of leadership for business transformation, new rules on talent retention and acquisition, methods of leveraging digital trends of mobile, analytics, and social, employee branding, and HR operating model along with change management.

Venue: Hotel Marriott Z端rich | Switzerland 27 March, 2016 Inclusive Recruitment Masterclass

The Inclusive Recruitment Masterclass will offer an insight into matters related to business imperatives regarding inclusive retirement, inclusive retirement strategies, successful case studies of inclusive recruitment programs, concise results from practitioners and end-user experts, development and execution of a successful culture with respect to inclusion, and offer necessary techniques and strategies for implementation.

Venue: London | United Kingdom April 13-15, 2016

Annual Diversity and Leadership Conference Annual Diversity and Leadership Conference will provide opportunities to organizations to explore resources and tools necessary to establish diverse workforce and maintain competition on the global stage. The conference will also offer individuals with a valuable opportunity to network together and cultivate their knowledge of leadership and diversity that can be utilized to craft distinguished and long careers. The speakers and different panel sessions will provide a unique perspective on a variety of topics that includes establishing a diverse workforce, diversity, personal branding, inclusion practises, and leadership skills.

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18 April, 2016 Talent Management Conference and Exposition Keeping on top of the latest technologies and trends continues to challenge all key talent acquisition teams. As talent attraction become more competitive, you need to know the latest innovations in mobile, social recruiting and other technologies and techniques to keep you ahead of the curve. To prepare you for 2016, the event will provide the audience with the latest case studies of talent acquisition innovation so you can jump ahead of your competition to find the right people, right now. It has gathered great case-studies around candidate experience, social sourcing, and the “right� technology to help you find the right people now.

Venue: Orlando

April 26-27, 2016 54th Annual HRMA Conference + Tradeshow 54th Annual HRMA Conference and tradeshow is the largest HR conference in Western Canada. It has a feature packed agenda, attendees over 1,200, and top-tier speakers. This conference focuses on bringing together business leaders, HR professionals, and educators in an upbeat environment, which is designed for maximum impact.

Venue: Vancouver Convention Centre West | United States

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