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The topic of HR and related issues is going very hot here, what with Salman Munir and his battery of posts on the subject. (Way to go man! you’re making commenter’s creep out of the woodwork!!)

The discussion on 25k led me to think about one additional point in a employer-employee relationship, and something which i believe is seriously lacking in our hiring processes, called motivation. Yes, M-o-t-i-v-a-t-i-o-n.

I keep hearing people wanting more pay, people switching for greener pastures, people not happy with their jobs, but very rarely have i heard, ‘i wasn’t motivated enough to stay there’ and yet that is one of the major reasons people switch in the first place (according to LifeHack.org). I’ve seen people stay at the same job for years without much financial gain, while others who switched even though they were being paid through the nose, and the only sane reason behind this (IMO) is the motivation one has for doing their job.

Coming to the IT industry in specific, what would motivate developers, testers, technical writers, project managers or even senior managers to stick with one company? I’ll tell you what i think, you tell me what you think.

Read the rest …

One must make a habit to learn from whatever experience can be gained during the course of each day. My new employer requires employees to open accounts at the Faysal Bank (this one is located in Garden Town, Lahore). So I made my way there this morning to face customer service hell.

Here are five online business lessons I learned from my visit:

Their business is a privilege

Banks do not open a new account unless you can prove that you are socially acceptable and thus make available a reference who has an account with the same branch. It is just like getting into a club or emailing friends for invites to a particularly hot startup.

Faysal Bank Limited wanted me to deposit Rs. 5,000 in order to open my account. I had a check with me worth many times more than that, and my employer would be depositing a significant amount every month. But thats just not good enough for Faysal bank.

Do not charge for the privilege of gaining your customer’s/client’s business. I do not even prefer to get any more information than their email (for unique id) and password (for access to your system, only if necessary). Allow them to be comfortable, let them in to see what you have to offer. Offer reminders to add to their profile by showing how it will enhance their experience.

Show them the way

I new there was going to be trouble as soon as I became a ping pong ball between two bank employees who could not decide where I should go to get my account opened. I was new in the environment and it was annoying. All I needed was clear direction. If the bank had any sign pointing me to the right person, I would not have felt like leaving.

First time visitors to your online business feel exactly the same. They come with a mix of expectation and curiosity. If you can not show them how to do what they want to achieve in the first few, precious minutes of acquisition, they are going to walk straight out of there by clicking the back button.

Perform A/B, multivariate testing and engage sample of users in pre-launch surveys to see just how they react when the reach your home page. It is going to save you a lot of bad word of mouth later on. Also, do not over burden them with too much information. Introduce and establish your tips / help methodology early on and provide just enough information for them to be productive. Read the rest …

I’m writing this entry from Fast NU Lahore Job Fair and lets not even go there about the fair, that’s a completely separate entry.

I have interviewed about 30 or so students, all of them soon to be graduated in their respective fields like IT, HR, Marketing, Telecom engineering etc. When you ask them their expectation about salary, the uniform response is:

Question: What are your salary expectations?
Answer: It should be at least 25k +

Question: Why 25k, how you came about this figure?
Answer: Sir, I have spent X amount on my education and now have a BS / MBA degree in so and so field. And I think this starting salary would only compensate for the cost I have spent on my education.

Question: You understand that initially, any company be it my own or my clients, they would need to spend some time on your training to make you productive. Do you think it would be wise for any company to pay Rs. 25k to an employee who is going to perform 3~6 months after this training period?
Answer: Sir, XYZ bank is paying Rs. X to their MTO’s, then why we should not be benefited of the package?

When you start a dialogue with them about their expectations and the current market situation; they do realize the reality but then 25k rules ☺

How this happened? How the students have defined 25K, 30K or 35K as a benchmark for a starting MTO level position? Let’s discuss and is this a right conclusion from the students?

It’s not a typo; here is what I’m writing this entry about –Appraisals. In every industry, annual / bi-annual appraisals are a very important event in the HR calendar. The employees eagerly await fruits of their labor to see how the companies value their efforts, in terms of salary increments and promotions. This year is no different! Many companies have just completed the appraisals and others are aiming at June for their yearly or bi-annual appraisals respectively.  I would like to start a discussion about this very important aspect, which leads to attrition rates / recruitment drives and let everyone share their opinions. The aim is to identify best practices, which have been tested in our industry and have lead to keep a healthy balance.

In my humble opinion the appraisals do play a vital role in shaping the IT industry. End result of appraisals can be one of the following:

1. Employees think the company has not done justice with them on not giving them a respectable raise, therefore they should move
2. Employees are satisfied with the appraisals and feel motivated to work & stay
3. Either satisfied or not, employees use the upcoming appraisal range to jump for a sizeable raise with next prospect employer

I’ve come across some interesting individual comments in my recent interviews with candidates:

• “The appraisal should justify the rate of inflation which we are effected with in our daily lives, experts rate it around 20%”
• “Appraisal is our right, what companies should also start doing is giving bonuses based on revenue from projects which we have successfully completed”
• “I really worked hard to maintain clients and made sure that I give my total dedicated output on the project; and at the end I get just 10% raise – its not fair!”
• “ABC company (top 5 player) is giving X% increments this year to SSE with Y years of experience, my company is only giving 50% of it. That’s why I feel I should move.”

Now from the other side of the fence – the Employer!

• “What should be a decent rate of appraisal, for 25-person team operation – 10%, 15%, —?”“Should we have increment slabs, like for 50K plus 10% etc?
• “Should promotion with its respective package be enough or do we need to give some bonus?”
• “The candidate qualifies promotion but we already have resources on the same level. I think we will let him have the same title but make the salary in range with the others.”
• “Is Bi-annual increment system more applicable for the industry keeping in view the attrition rates?”

I hope this would lead to a healthy discussion. The above comments I have shared are from my own personal experience with both clients and candidates during my recruitment practice at Radical Hire

First it was city specific, then it was company specific, now its university specific. Brightspyre has been constantly expanding and innovating itself as a leading provider to job-search portals in Pakistan, and this recent development had me take my admiration of the team up a notch.

On 15th April, they launched a job board specifically targeting the students of GIKI.

In my opinion, this is a genuine need in the country. With so much time and effort expended by companies in scouting universities for top new employees, having it extend into the online world was the only logical choice. The way it works is simple, and is benefiting to both sides of the equation.

Read the rest …

Every so often, people are promoted within organizations to take over new roles and responsibilities. Whether it be after appraisal time or on a need basis, moving up the ladder is the reason many employees deal with the day to day realities of their jobs. However, one of the areas most missed by organizations when promoting is allowing these employees to grow into their new roles. When this happens, the employee filling out the new position reacts in one of the following two ways.

• Mass confusion after assuming the new role, followed by running after knowledge/skills to make sure they know how to deal with it
• Frustration at not being able to fulfill expectations, because they’re not what a)they expected, or b)what the company expected from them

Normally, i’ve seen the second thing happen at many of the organizations i’ve consulted with. End result, you have a disgruntled employee who then either wastes both their and the company’s time by staying on the payroll or leaves the company in a rutt.

So how do we deal with such situations? You allow your people to grow into that role. Yes, sometimes, the answer really is as simple as that. How do you go about doing that? From personal experience, here is a strategy that works.

Read the rest …

Yesterday, in addition to attending the Startup Insiders Session hosted by NIIT, i also attended a free seminar/workshop sponsored by PMI-Islamabad Chapter on “PMO’s Role in OPM3 Assessment”. The speakers were Mr. Suhail Iqbal, from SysComp and Mr. Asadullah Chaudrey from AUC Technologies.

Coming to the meat of the matter, two areas were discussed which i believe should be of quite some importance to our community, specially those involved in software development. First was the concept of a Project Management Office (PMO) which basically acts as a central command & control entity & information clearinghouse (depending upon its charter) for project managers within the organization and the second was the OPM3 standard, which is a maturity model focused specially on project management. Designed by PMI and based heavily upon Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), OPM3 attempts to classify the maturity at which organizations perform project management, starting from managing projects and moving upwards to managing programs and eventually portfolios.

Here’s my take on project management. You may well be thinking, so how does it affect us? Well, read on…

Read the rest …

I was reading a blog post on the Sales Proceess by Micheal Webb, and his closing argument resonated with me quite a bit. One of the biggest benefits of having a process is to ensure you make use of the knowledge already available within your organization. He writes…

“[W]hen someone does something that works better, the organization doesn’t know why it worked. The power of process thinking is in its ability to harness this knowledge for the benefit of the organization”

When thinking about processes, a mistake done by make people on both sides of the table is to think “compliance”. This is why processes have gotten the bad reputation that they have. Just think, would you like to do something just to ensure you dont get into trouble? Or do something which increases your productivity, ensures you get your work done on time and enhances your sense of satisfaction with your job?

The trouble is, most management teams dont see it that way. And neither do most consultants for that matter. What happens in reality is something like the following.

1. Management decides something is not right and something needs to be done to ‘improve’, or get certfied to win more business.
2. Management researches possible solutions and comes up with frameworks (ITIL, CMMI, ISO9001, ISO27001 etc) which promise benefits through ‘best practices’
3. Management tasks someone (either an in-house resource or a consultant) to implement the framework to get the desired result.

(and here is where this breaks down)

Read the rest …

I think new media might have an answer to the rants I used to have last year - that it is hard to find out the truth of people or fact-check them during business transactions, or when hiring them.

The key takeaway from this video is What is your personal brand and what are you doing to build it - some food for thought

Do you believe in the power of your idea? Can you bet on it at the right time? Take this survey and find out. Don’t take the result too seriously though - just use this as an exercise to know more about yourself and the likely challenges on the road to entrepreneurship.

From WSJ blog post: Do You Have the Guts to Be an Entrepreneur?.

I believe there’s something in the entrepreneurial genetic makeup that enables certain people to bet big when others hesitate and hold back. And whether it’s blackjack or business, that trait—coupled with perseverance–is often what enables a big payoff.