Delving Deeper

 Background: Earlier this year, in April to be precise, I got the exciting  news about me being selected to be part of SHRM22Influencer squad, set up by the social media team of Society for Human Resource Management ( SHRM or SHRRM as they say in the US).  I considered it to be a special honour to be the only person based in India to be part of this elite gang and was really excited about the opportunity to be back at an SHRM Annual conference for the 8th time.   The buildup Days flew past and I realised that it's a tougher ask to plan an international trip from India post pandemic. The trip was going to be very short as I had to keep clients waiting as I would be in a different time zone (over 10 hours behind at NoLa) for a week. It was also going to be expensive as domestic travel in US had become dearer due to a many reasons - both geopolitical and economical ones at that.  As the days flew past, I was in two minds about making the long (albeit much aw...

As some say, when life throws lemons at you, you end up learning to make and like lemonades! So just about a decade ago, in 2012, when serendipity offered me the opportunity to cover world's largest HR conference on my social media handles as an SHRM12 Blogger, I considered it as pure luck / coincidence. Later, a series of life events (I have blogged about some of them) made me to belive that we have the power, as humans, to design for serendipity .  Tough to believe? I shall explain...  So, after having attended about 4 HR conferences every year in the last decade, (Thats over 40 events!) I have seen that large congregations of committed humans with some 'common-interest' can create this amazing possibility for Win-Win results for the 'contributors' among the congregation / gathering. So, next month, when SHRM is giving me yet another chance to attend the SHRM22 live at New Orleans alongside the SHRM22Influencers , here is a humble attempt to dig into thos...

Honored to be part of SHRM’s coveted list of HR influencers once again for SHRM21. This would have been my 7th time at an SHRM annual conference, and 4th consecutive one after 2017 (pandemic took 2020) as an international attendee. This year, as pandemic has put restrictions on international travel, I will be following and curating online experiences from SHRM21 along with my fellow HR influencers or SHRM 21 bloggers – make sure that you link up with each one of them to follow their unique perspectives. Today, as an introductory post, I would love to delve a tiny bit into the theme of SHRM21 and what it means to me. This year’s theme is ‘Now more than ever’. What are the thoughts that your unique synapses are live wiring to you when you read the theme? Do share as comments with #NMTE. So the following are the just some of the results that my neurons seems to want me to share with you all today. 1. HR is better poised to embrace science, Now more than ever To elucidate thi...

This month I completed an enriching two decades as an HR professional. As I'm entering into my third decade as an HR Pro, it's an honour to be invited by the largest forum of HR professionals in the world  to play catalyst role using social media platforms once again (this being the 4th time!) for their 2019 Annual Conference and Exposition at Las Vegas, USA  - as an International attendee. Ever since 2012 when I accidentally reached the Bloggers Lounge, I've been blessed to find myself connected to an amazing group of people that SHRM curates with care - the SHRM Bloggers. You can find the 2019 list here . The inclusion meant that I could choose any one from the huge list of sponsors who collaborate with SHRM Events team to bring together the largest ever congregation of HR folks on the globe year on year in the US of A. So I set out to look for a theme which I could used to pick a name from the 2019 list.   I decided to use 'Connection' as the theme and zer...

This was my first time as an Umpire at this picturesque venue so was looking forward to this from the time I go t the call from KCA. Yes, I missed watching the famous   #RanjiTrophy   #SemiFinal which happened here some months back....   Since it was Wayanad District and having done some   #SubCells   for   #BirdAtlasKerala , I did not have a second thought about driving down yesterday evening from Kochi. Driving down meant that I can stop at will   :-)   for anything that i want to do during the 250 odd kms that I need to cover to reach the accommodation that the Local DCA would have arranged for the match officials. I set off from Kakkanad after lunch with Vidya Anish and our boys - reached Wayanad Sulthan Battery by 10.30 pm. Had done two   #pitstops   (Tea and Dinner) on the way.   Since I drove alone - TED talks   #audio   was the main companion   :-)   - listened to a   #Playlist   on #Me...

It was in the year 2012 that the conference bug bit me... Yes, ever since then, I have invested (both time and money) to attend a minimum of 5 conferences a year.  These events helped me connect to the impact that advancements in Technology was creating to the evolution of Human Resource / People function's slowly but steadily. My memory is still fresh about an evening back in 1998-99 during a discussion about future of HR during my student days at Symbiosis . So to cut a long story short, the feeling I got from that discussion was that HR function as we saw it in 1997-98 will vanish as a function - the villain forecasted was a piece of technology which was then known as HRIS or Human Resource Information systems.  That prediction turned out to be completely off the mark. Infact, the first offer I was considering after a 3 year stint on my first job (starting with Industrial relations at Century Rayon, a then BK Birla group co), was that of a oracle HRMS consultant with...

--> Five years into my first ever entrepreneurial venture ( www.ssconsult.in ) has given me a lot of opportunities to ponder over the state of HR profession in my country. For those wondering how someone based out of a small corner of the diverse country that India is, can claim this – read on to know more about me via my LinkedIn profile.  Since Jan 2015, I've been to have been called upon by IT SME / Techie CXO's across Kerala, starting with Technopark, Thiruvananthapuram to Cyberpark(s) (UL and Govt.) and most recently the Malabar Innovation Zone, which my Co-founder almost silently set up last year.  It was serendipity that got me connected to the HR profession back in 1996-97.   However, I had not imagined then that life and career events will help me refine those serendipitous moments into what looks to be closing in on a purpose journey.   From 2008, I was responsible for building and scaling HR teams and this meant that I will need to ...

Context: This is a digitised version of the print article which I wrote for the TQM Newsletter of Century Rayon , my first employer. This was published as Volume 1 in Feb 2001 by the then B.K Birla Group company. In today's dynamic business environment, Retention is perhaps one thought that is foremost in the minds of HR Managers in any organisation. In this article, an attempt is being made to analyse some aspects relating to retention of employees with special reference to manufacturing organisations. At the outset, I would like to state that what follows is not, as the title may seem to suggest an elixir to this pressing problem, but some thoughts which naturally are consequent to exposure to environmental stimuli, to be precise. Understanding the Manufacturing Psyche   Manufacturing setups are the offshoots of the Licence / permit raj, which is under threat with the advent of liberalisation. Needless to say, traditional job enablers like Job Security and Location a...

I have to say I loved reading this article by The Economist about Leadership and the way it' s perceived by majority of followers - you can ready the article here Ever since I commenced my own entrepreneurship stint with  SS Consulting , I have had the opportunity to watch leadership role players who were Founders / Co-founders from close quarters. These leaders come from the companies which came to us (we take referred clients mostly) to enable their organisation's growth journey. So I could relate quickly to the examples referred in this article. Here's what I learned from past 4 years of interactions with leadership role players in Kerala. Assessment of Quality remains a challenge  - Oratory skills, Charisma, Position, Caste and background comes in the way of relevant metrics for assessing leadership skills. Miss realising that Leadership is 'different' by itself -  Most leadership role players get elevated to their roles due to pre-disposition or proven Te...

It was back in 2012 that I was lucky enough to sign up for being a blogger with SHRM - I had blogged about that excitement back then.  Over the years, I ended up attending SHRM's annual national conference 5 times upto 2018 of which two more have been as member of the elite bloggers squad.  Frankly, I tweet more than I blog as I found that twitter, although not that intuitive to many, gave me the opportunity to simplify text and think deeper in an attempt to get the message to 144 characters.  No prizes for guessing the connection I found to the Title and the reason for my blog. So it is with special excitement that I am sharing to my blog readers that I will playing an active part in SHRM's Annual conference and Exposition   this year at Las Vegas, Nevada - as a #shrm19Blogger once again.  I shall be posting another blog about stuff I'm planning to do at #shrm19 around the them building better work places. So long.. Leaving you all with a link...

Over the past 4 years Whatsapp groups have become a huge source of learning and connections for me. Today I happened to see a discussion about how Women's cricket should not be compared to Men's cricket on a whatsapp group - where I had also posted a comparison and felt the need to explore this further. As I did my search for third party articles, I realised that this moment has within it an opportunity to help understand or connect to Career and career paths for individuals with  any Talent.  For this purpose - I would define Talent as anything that the seekers of that talent derive value from. Now Mandira Bedi is an actor starting and Shanti  was her major break in 1995. Her career path is explained via this Your Story article . To bring in the connection to cricket - let me paste a portion of text from this article below: Her love for cricket took her straight to hosting the ICC World Cups in 2003 and 2007, proving to people that women could host cricket matches too...

Here I am, blogging from an Uber rushing towards the venue of one of India's largest gatherings of Human resource (#HR) professionals, Vendors and newsmakers.  Yes, I had read what Keith Hammond had written about Why he hates HR some years back and from then on, I had been thinking about creating my own ways for getting stuff out of conferences like these. The roles I get to play in the function I chose back in 1997 had been giving me the opportunity (with some special access rights) to large gatherings of HR folks from 2012 onwards. For those interested in numbers, I have been attending upto 5 such events every year from 2012 - yes, every year. With that as a context, let me delve into stuff that's making me excited about my 4th such conference in 2018, the Annual gathering curated by SHRM's India entity - the first version of which I had attended in Goa back in 2013. 1. The SHRM Social media Squad has been my special Learning network from 2012 Atlanta conference, my f...