HR: Centers of excellence and leaders

Having worked in HR CoEs in many organizations, i have realized one cardinal mistake which companies do in anointing the leaders for the CoEs.

CoEs should always be led by specialists. Plain and simple. There is no 2 ways about it. People who dedicate many many years of their life first in struggling to get an opportunity in their field of interest and then sticking to that area through organizational and personal transitions, are best suited to lead the verticals. So for instance an L&OD professional or a C&B professional should be heading that particular vertical. They come in with a particular lens and see the organization through those glasses. They have a long term vision. They are then able to identify the gaps and the opportunity areas and then deliver benefit to the organisation.

Unfortunately, with the quality of HR Heads running the show going down day by day, hare brained ideas come into being. I mention deteriorating quality to signify that most have now stopped thinking and keep following what they have seen earlier in their careers. One of such ludicrous ideas is to consider the CoE head position as a transit role for gaining experience in that particular vertical so that HR professionals can become well rounded HR Heads. This is only a temporary stint for them. Without the wherewithal to lead the function, these are the people who do maximum damage  to the credibility of the function. In such organisations, for years employees feel that nothing good is coming out of the HR CoEs. This is the sole reason and the earlier the CEO and Head HR understand that, the less damage will the CoEs and the organization need to bear.

Job Match (in Job Evaluation): Insights

Job Match is a pretty complicated affair when it comes to identifying the correct job family, discipline code, career level, nature of role (IC/Manager) and aligning the employees to the right job family. The complication doesn't arise because it is an esoteric or a specialized skill. It arises because of the subjectivity and requirement for interpretation. The impact is that if one HR / C&B manager is doing the job evaluation/match and another does the JE/Match for the same set, the difference in the result might leave you surprised. There would be a difference of 30-40% job matches or may be more.

Does this mean then that the method is not reliable?

Over the years, after working on several Global Grading System/ Job Evaluation methodologies, experience has taught me to look at Job Matches in three steps, which i have self-termed below for ease of expression:

1. "Weighted" Match:  There is a Job Family for say Finance or HR or Sales and further categorization. Let us take a case of a sales manager. The sales model for the manager might be predominantly channel sales, with a little bit of direct sales to named accounts. So 80:20 ratio for channel (indirect) sales: Direct Sales.

The job family dictionary wouldn't have a role as a mix of both. Since the weight for the role is more towards indirect sales, we will match it in indirect sales category within sales job family.

For some positions it might be a 100% match, but that is a rare phenomenon in today's work culture. For instance, a Compensation & Benefits Manager handling statutory compliance or HRIS portfolio is quite common. In such a case the focus should be to see where the key focus of the role lies.

2. "Close" Match: Let's take an example of a payroll role. In Towers Watson GGS, payroll is shown under Finance Job Family. It should ideally be under HR Job family and that is what several companies follow. Payroll is about employees' salary and emolument payments. It is a strictly confidential area and since it is related to people placement, fitment and people cost, it should be under HR and not Finance.  Even within HR, not everyone has access to this data. The Head-HR and C&B Manager would.

Now imagine the requirement to do a job match for a payroll person in the HR team. In such a case, since we cannot place payroll in Finance Job Family, you will have to find something within the HR Job Family. Depending on the nature of activities, you look for the closest match and decide to place it under, say, "HR Operations".

3. "Range" Match: Suppose, both the above situations aren't possible...i.e neither there is a direct job match nor a close match, then what is the line of approach?

We will then see what is the nature of the activities under the role and what is the purpose of the exercise. If the purpose is to do a compensation survey and get a compensation range data for all positions, then after understanding the role, i will look for a similar role in maybe a different "general" function and place it over there.

Suppose in a Freight Forwarding industry, we are looking at the role of a Carrier booking associate. The role essential would be to ensure slotting of space for goods in carriers + dispute resolution. If say there is no direct match or a close match, we will then look at a general function like Operations and see if it can be slotted in a role of similar complexity. As a validity check, we can also see the range of the alternate role and basis market compensation sense of the original role, we can see if it would fit it.

These three steps would ensure that the purpose of the exercise is met.

Psychology nugget

A person usually makes a lot of hand gestures when telling a true story. When telling a lie a person's hands will stay noticeably still

Planets/ Grihas in Jyotish

Planets	Grahas	Day ruled of the week	Significance in astrology	Connected with	Color	Gem	Metal	Direction	Time taken to transit a sign
Sun	Surya	Sunday	King	Father	Red	Ruby	Gold	East	1 month
Moon	Chandra	Monday	Queen	Mother	White	Pearl	Silver	North-East	2.5 days
Mars	Mangala	Tuesday	Commander	Brother	Red	Coral	Copper	South	45 days
Mercury	Budha	Wednesday	Prince		Green	Emarald	Bronze	North	About a month
Jupiter	Guru	Thursday	Deva Guru (guru of the Gods)	Children	Yellow	Yellow Sapphire	Gold	North-East	About a year
Venus	Shukra	Friday	Daityaguru (guru of the demons)	Spouse	White	Diamond	Silver	South-East	About a month
Saturn	Shani	Saturday	Servant	profession	Blue	Blue Sapphire	Iron	West	about 2.5 years
North Node	Rahu	-			Black	Hessonite (Gomedh)	Mixed metal/Lead		about 1.5 years
South Node	Ketu	-			Brown	Cat's-Eye	Lead		about 1.5 years

Amazing Chess Sets at Red Fort

As a chess enthusiast, i am always on the lookout for good quality chess sets. In a diverse land like India, you get to see beautiful variants of chess sets, esp. in museums and heritage shops. They are either not available for buying or way too costly. I had recently been to Jaipur, Shimla and Mussorie and my search continued. But i didn't meet with any luck.

A couple of days back, i had been to Delhi. The day started with Connaught Place (CP) where i collected a stitched business suit from the famous Iqbal brothers. It is a beautiful city and you tend to make plans on the spot. Post that me and my wife decided to move on to Andhra Bhawan for a sumptuous lunch...then to chandni chowk for a bit of shopping and finally to the Red Fort !

Once you enter the Red Fort, there is a covered market place..akin to a veil for the Red Fort. You will find the most amazing chess sets, reasonably priced, at almost all the shops. When you are in Delhi, Red Fort is a must visit. Spare some time to have a look at the chess sets displayed at the shops.

Mount Abu - An amazing romantic getaway !!

Happy New Year to one and all !

Me and my lovely wife Priyanka spent some time at Mount Abu in the last week of December'13.

We dreamt of a quiet vacation, enjoying the mountain chill and visiting places of tourist interest. We were served a bountiful spread, beyond measure ,of all that we wished for !

Sometimes things just fall in place and render a wow experience. We stayed at Kishangarh House, a heritage property belonging to the Maharaja of Kishangarh and Roopangarh. It was a royal treat throughout with amazing views, well-manicured gardens, awesome service, enchanting serenity and closeness to the market and Nakki Lake. Gaumukh, Sunset Point, Trevor Tank, Bhrahmakumari properties ...the whole beat.  Mount Abu is the best hill station i have visited till date.

We also took out a day to visit Ambaji, gabbar Hills and the centuries old jain temples near Ambaji.

Nice to end the year on such a high note !

logical reasoning - cube problem

read this on pagalguy ... nice one !!

A cube is given with an edge of unit ‘N’. It is painted on all faces. It is cut into smaller cubes of edge of unit ‘n’. How many cubes will have ‘x’ faces painted?

In these types of questions, the first thing that we need to figure out is the number of smaller cubes. For this, we look at one particular edge of the big cube and figure out how many smaller cubes can fit into this. It will be N/n. So, the number of smaller cubes will be (N/n)³

A cube has 6 faces and none of the smaller cubes will have all faces painted. As a matter of fact, none of the smaller cubes will have even 5 or 4 faces painted. The maximum number of faces, which will be painted on a smaller cube, will be 3. This will happen only in the case of the smaller cubes that emerge from the corners of the big cube.

So, number of smaller cubes with 3 faces painted = 8 (Always)

For 2 faces to be painted, we will have to consider the smaller cubes that emerge from the edges of the big cube (leaving out the corners). So, the smaller cubes on every edge will be (N-2n)/n. There are 12 edges in a cube.

So, number of smaller cubes with 2 faces painted = 12 * (N-2n)/n

For 1 face to be painted, we will have to consider the smaller cubes that emerge from the face of the big cube (leaving out the corners and the edges). So, the smaller cubes on every face will be [(N-2n)/n]². There are 6 faces in a cube.

So, number of smaller cubes with 1 face painted = 6 x [(N-2n)/n]²

For no face to be painted, we will have to consider the smaller cubes that emerge from the inside of the big cube (leaving out the outer surface which was painted). Imagine this as taking a knife and cutting a slice of width ‘n’ from every face of the cube. You will be left with a smaller cube with an edge of ‘N-2n’. Number of smaller cubes that you can make from the resulting cube is [(N-2n)/n]³

So, number of smaller cubes with 0 face painted = [(N-2n)/n]³

Let us take an example to elucidate this type of problem.

Example,

A painted cube is given with an edge of 15 cm. Smaller cubes are cut out from it with an edge of 3 cm each. How many cubes will have 3 faces painted, 2 faces painted, 1 face painted and no face painted.

Solution,

Total number of smaller cubes = (15/5)³ = 125

3 faces painted = 8 cubes.

2 faces painted: Consider an edge of size 15 cm. We have removed the corners that take away 3 cm from each corner of the edge. Now our edge is of 9 cm. 3 cubes of 3 cm each can come from it. There are 12 edges. So, there will be 3 * 12 = 36 cubes.

1 face painted: Consider a face. If we have removed 3 cm from each edge of the face, we will be left with a square of side 9 cm or area 81 sq cm. There can be 9 smaller squares that can be formed on that face with an area of 9 sq cm each. These 9 will be the cubes which will have 1 face painted. There are 6 faces. So, there will be 9 * 6 = 54 cubes.

No face painted: Cut slices of 3 cm each from each face of the cube. We will be left with a smaller cube of edge 9 cm. Number of smaller cubes that can be formed from it is (9/3)³ = 27. So, 27 cubes will have no faces painted.

You can use this to verify the formulas above and also note that 8 + 36 + 54 + 27 = 125. This means that there is no need to find out all four using the formula, just find any three of them and the other would emerge by using the total. In an exam, this might save you some valuable time.