Dr. S. Naga Siddharth’s Post

With Defence Veterans at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore today. Sharing ideas and perspectives on making a successful transition to the business world. NCC is the key. Networking. Context. Content. Was deeply humbled and surprised when six participants met me after a couple of hours and told me the exact points I had shared and continued the conversation from there. I didn’t miss the opportunity to get clicked with the men in shiny uniform 😬😊

It’s pure insensitivity A large company has laid off 1000 folks saying it isn’t cost cutting, but alluding to low performance. This would make it tough for those impacted to find their new job. It would be appropriate for such companies to be a little more empathetic to their own employees. Afterall they seem to be shifting such jobs to other Geos. Nothing wrong in that!

The havoc of AI in recruitment and selection. Playing with lives and livelihood. Have a tool, will use it, is almost the flavour of the season. I went through a product demo of a AI interview and selection tool. To my genuine horror, the bot gave a PDF summary of the candidate in dimensions such as technical skills, leadership, etc. Being a HR professional with two decades of experience, my first question was, "what do you mean by leadership?" The visibly upset founder wasn't able to answer, but defended saying 1.5 lakh resumes have gone through the bot and satisfaction is 98%. I wasn't convinced, asked him what is the construct the bot is measuring? He said it adapts to the company. Asked him what would it measure for my company? The absolutely livid founder said it will adapt. Thanked him profusely and made him aware that his product is playing with lives.

Performance management is broken Nothing new at all. Companies often focus on fixing the process, ensuring clarity and even changing tools. Nothing wrong with any of this. The crux is that performance is a very personal topic. Like health. It needs to be handled sensitively. And that needs the human process to be fixed. Are your managers trained on playing the role of performance coaches? This is a skill that needs to be learnt and hence can be trained. Do they have a kneeboard checklist of things to do during a review conversation? How often do they spend quality time with every reportee and get synchronised? If all these are done diligently, the surprise (shock) element is significantly reduced. For one, I have used these regularly and the year end conversations with my team members are more often quite short where their self appraisal is very very close, or sometimes they rate themselves lower than the manager appraisal rating. The one element that is dear to everyone is the element of emotional labour. People like to be successful and cared for. Design systems for that. Btw the image below has been generated by ChatGPT.

A detailed article on the shift in focus for those doing performance appraisal. Thank you harish devarajan Sir.

Going beyond engagement At UrbanPiper, we went first principles. Looked at a large number of outcomes that are aspired for by founders and boards (happiness, engagement, energy when you get up in the morning) and one more element "want to do more for UrbanPiper, willingly". The last one is called discretionary effort. After a survey and some fundoo stats (regression for causality), we identified specific drivers of discretionary effort - self respect at the workplace, relationships at work, Manager led elements (appreciation, quality of appraisal discussions, respectful relationship). We stick to measuring just these elements quarterly and work to improve them. In 18 months, this has given focus, clarity and built muscle in the system to deliver the same. Managers have been trained as performance coaches. Appreciation is no longer limited to teams, its often across teams. Quality of feedback scores have been improving. Managerial 1:1s, HR 1:1s and a lot more help us predict and proactively manage attrition. Talent density is improving because of clarity in hi-po. critical and scarcity of talent. The outcome is what we call the People Power Index. This is a number between 0-100 that is published quarterly for every people manager. Takes into account five elements that are completely in the control of the people manager and holds a mirror up to show how they have fared. Works magic!

Automated ranking and the self limiting nature in career websites There have been so many HR professionals speaking with me on the issue of automated ranking of profiles in career websites. The ranking mechanism is a black box. Most of those I spoke with are people I have known for a decade and are top class professionals who are great at their job. Apparently they don’t receive a single interview call because whatever they do, the websites show their ranking in the bottom half of applicants. It’s a well known fact that leadership resumes are first shortlisted by either interns or those with less than two years in many search firms and then passed on to the managers. It’s time that both portals and search firms take a human view of the problem and do not use cookie cutter algorithms to hire leader talent.

Walking through any city gives a sense of the sentiment of the population Struggling Surviving Thriving Reviving True human development lies in moving towards reviving.

Such a beautiful and nuanced analysis of Annapurna Hotel of Coimbatore. I used to go there on field visits when I worked in retail. Their lunch is truly sumptuous and satisfying with no side effects. There is a YouTube video on them and the part I loved the most? The bit where they speak about how they take care of their employees. ❤️d that bit the most.