December 25, 2008

An innocent wishlist to Santa :-)


Merry Christmas!!!!!

Hope Santa has been really sweet to all of you....Let's have a look at what could be in the wish list of the following:

1. B-School Graduate: A decent placement.

2. Indian Citizens: Peace and better security.

3. Corporate India: Economic stability.

4. Investors: A promising scene in the stock market.

5. HR community: Business partnership and beyond.....

6. Indian educational institutions: More qualified professors and more
focus on research work.

7. Indian proffesors: Respect which they truly deserve and better
salary.

8. Rich Indian: Peace of Mind.

9. Poor Indian: Piece of Dignity.

10. Saikat Saha: Loads of stuff!!!! Can't mention them because of
word limit constraint, vocabulary constraint
and....................................

Hope Santa is listening!!!!!!!!!!!

December 23, 2008

In conversation....


Once a popular HR practitioner addressing a group of HR students said that it becomes very important that apart from academics, HR students must pursue various interests with utmost passion as each interest areas can teach something valuable to us especially in the Human Behavior context.

Lionel Wilkins is my class mate,good friend,a keen future HR practitioner,a college heart
throb and a passionate salsa dancer.
Following is the excerpt of a conversation I had with him:

Me: When did you get introduced to Salsa?
Lionel: Well!!! I am four years young in learning Salsa.

Me: What have been your accomplishments?
Lionel: I was the runners up in All Chennai Salsa Congress and I have completed L A Cuban-Advance 4 level.
Me: What does these accomplishments mean to you?
Lionel: It gives me a sense of gratification and it serves as an indicator of where I stand as a Salsa Dancer.

Me: What has been the influence of Salsa on you?
Lionel: I have become a better dancer and it has been extremely instrumental in aligning my body, mind and soul. I guess it has made me more graceful too.

Me: What is 'grace' according to you?
Lionel: Grace is pleasantness according to me. It's the ease or aplomb with which you conduct yourself.

Me: Salsa is being used as an employee engagement initiative in various companies. What's your views on it?
Lionel: I would certainly introduce Salsa in the company I will work for in future. It's truly a thoughtful HR initiative and I am sure it will serve a great purpose. It's a rhythemic way to unwind and de-stress yourself after all the hardwork in office.It's a dance form which makes you feel good about yourself and that prepares you to make others feel good too. Salsa revolves around great team work where you are constantly dancing with a partner and also multiple partners at times. This requires brilliant understanding and mutual respect between each other. Team work ,mutual understanding and respect are the foundation of any proffesional relationship and hence, Salsa serves a purpose here too. It provides a superb workout and can be a fun way towards engaging in health and fitness.Finally, like in any other art form, here also you need a lot discipline. So, once you can achieve discipline in one area of your life then you can translate it in other areas of your life too.
Me: What are the common motivators behind a person to join Salsa Classes?
Lionel: The fact that it's a a lovely dance form is a motivator in itself. The earlier mentioned reasons in the last question I answered also propels a person to join Salsa classes if he is well read about salsa and it's benefits already. People also use it as a platform for networking and socialising.
Me: What would be your advice to people like me with long hands and legs, who finds it difficult to dance?
Lionel: Saikat! many tall guys are excellent Salsa dancers. It's meant for everyone whether you are tall or short, thin or fat. I would suggest you to embrace this dance form whole heartedly.
Me: What makes you so passionate about Salsa?
Lionel: Personally speaking, it fires your imagination bringing you to the heights of ecstacy and brings you down to the depth of your soul. I truly find it extremely romantic.
Me: You must be meeting a lot of attractive girls in your Salsa classes. Is your girl friend fine with it?
Lionel: She was a little hesitant earlier but now she is very supportive. She attends all my shows and has been very encouraging throughout. There is a lot of trust between us.

Me: I guess Salsa is known as a Man's dance.Now, that sounds a little chauvanistic.I wonder if this goes out well with women!!! What's your views on that?
Lionel: Traditionally in Salsa Dance the Man is the Leader and the Woman is the Follower . Together the Leader and the Follower are known as Dance Partners but the man leads only if the lady wants to follow. All is in her hands and she is extremely integral in the dance. There is no such animosity/divide mentality between the boys and the girls. Salsa improves the mutual respect and makes us a lot more confident about ourselves and each other. It's a very romantic dance form as I told you earlier. Many dance partners have actually married each other in the past.

Me: Brother!!! it was nice speaking to you. Thanks!!!
Lionel: My pleasure brother!!!

I hope this conversation will make most of us look at Salsa as a dance form which is beyond a mere dance form. Merry Christmas in advance!!!!!

December 13, 2008

Get the metrics right!!!!!!!!!

In a recent article in Human Factor, G.D. Sharma writes that 'I believe that it is very essential that we employ a set of metrics which will help HR measure itself in a rather integrated manner'.

I consulted Professor Google regarding some of the most widely practised HR metrics in various companies and found this link.

December 8, 2008

Aquil Busral's interview in rediff.com

I found this very interesting interview of Aquil Busral, National President, NHRDN.....

December 4, 2008

God's own concert..........



Music is special....it has the capacity to strike special cords when played in a special symphony....



2nd December 2008 was indeed special....

Five legends ie Zakir Husain, Shankar Mahadevan, Sivamani, U.Shrinivas and Selva Ganesh performed together in Times of India, Heart Beat Concert in Chennai.

The concert began with a minute of silence dedicated to all the victims of the Mumbai Terror Attack and ended with the song 'Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram'....Everything about the concert had a sanctity and a magic which according to me was beyond human understanding so I chose to sitback and fall in love with the music.....

Where legends like Zakir Husain, Shankar Mahadevan, Sivamani, U.Shrinivas and Selva Ganesh perform together at the same time, Maa Saraswati resides there...

One of the many traits which I admire the most among such legends is the high reverence they have for each other and for music....

December 2, 2008

Learnings from 12th National Conference of NHRDN

I was one of the 500 HR professionals and students who attended the 12th National Conference of NHRDN . It was indeed a special conference since the Chennai Chapter of NHRDN won the 'Best chapter award'. Being a member of the Chennai chapter, it felt genuinely good.


Following are few links which would provide you a comprehensive snapshot of this mega HR conference:

Link 1

Link 2

Link 3


Following are some of my key learnings:

1. The foundational theme of Talent Management are leadership, Inclusiveness and management of employee life cycle.

2. Global Integration is the way forward and being Globally Aware is important for achieving Global Integration.

3. High employee expectation gives opportunity to differentiate.

4. Focus of talent development: continous learning, risk taking, response to change, collabaration, problem solving and creativity.

5.'Intelligence is sticky,tricky and leaky'

6.India emerging as an undergraduate factory but it's still low on research competency.

7. Human Capital Management software is growing.

8. New age organisational challenges: Global economy, Increasing focus on innovation and growth, Faster ROI demands, younger workforce, Higher costs.


9.Every word has the power of mantra, every plant is having medicinal value, no human is incompetent.

10. Success recipe for HR transformation: link business strategy, human capital strategy and HR function strategy.

11. Human Capital Analytics is the future.

12. Building platform for healthy Gender diversity: articulate loudly and clearly that they value diversity, acknowledge motherhood.

13. ABC of HR value creation: Alignment, Business focus, Collaboration.

14. Three key questions for prioritising HR actions: What is our vision for human capital?????, Do we look at system value creation?????,What is the weakest link in the chain?????

15. Companies high on CSR activities are attractive to potential employees.

16. Material cost for a manufacturing company is 60% [Hypothetical]and labour cost is 8% [Hypothetical] but much more time is spend on labour issues than on material issues[certainly an area of concern.]

17. Shaping the new HR manager: Guard the values, articulate the values, resolve conflicting values, confront bad behaviour, exemplary in our own behaviour.

18. Five key dimensions demonstrate the increased economic interdependence of a multipolar world: Emerging consumer, war of talent, the flow of capital, the battle for resources and sustainibility, the new map of innovation.

Well!!! I could just share a small portion of my learnings here but I hope my future writings are reflective of my rest of the learnings. I want to thank all the esteemed speakers for the fantastic knowledge sharing.....