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COVER STORY
Labor Relations, Exclusion and the Law
-- TN Ramakumar
Labor and management seem to be on a collision course as has been evidenced by
the increased militancy of labor in many parts of India. Labor laws are often blamed for this
state, though often it is a question of implementation. Both labor and management probably need
to stop playing zero-sum games as enterprise level rationality often becomes irrational at
the level of the economy. This article talks about labor laws and their relation with the corporates.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
STRIKES
Strikes : The Negative Side of Group Cohesiveness
-- Shobhna Grundy
These days strikes have almost become an inevitable part of our daily dose of news. Many
a time we read and ignore the relation it has with the psyche of the entire workforce, including
all of us. This article discusses the reasons why people get together and resort to strikes.
What forces them to come together and unite for a common cause despite perceiving each other
as competitors under normal circumstances, and what should be done to handle this?
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
DEALING WITH LAYOFFS
Dealing with the Cut
-- D Surekha Thakur and T Latha Chakravarthi
Layoffs have never been a good idea for the employees. These save very little money, keep
top performers away from work, make work stressful for the remaining employees who cover for
the rest. During recession, in practice, companies cut down their staff strength in order to
reduce costs. Organization's accountability to their shareholders and stakeholders ultimately results
in the suffering of the employees. Employees get so focused on holding on to their own jobs
that even the survivors often feel lost and confused in the shuffle. However, an employee who
can accept, overcome and cope with changes such as Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) and
staff cutbacks, is the one who can survive the present scenario of recession.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
HR SKILLS
Human Relations Skills for Managerial Effectiveness
-- Anand Singh Kablana and Shailender Kumar
Human relations skills are recognized as one of the most important skills for
managerial success. Human relations at the workplace broadly imply the interaction and cooperation of
the people to support and complement their efforts for achieving individual, group
and organizational effectiveness. Managers have to essentially play an important role as leaders
to coordinate, guide, facilitate, motivate and maintain harmony amongst employees, in order
to achieve organizational effectiveness in terms of efficiency, quality of product and services,
and the quality of working life of the organizational members. Thus, we can say that managerial
skills are a must for all operations in an organization.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
LEADERSHIP
Swarm Intelligence in Leadership
-- S Kumar Chandar
Small victories can be achieved alone, but not great victories. A swarm is an
apparently disorganized collection of moving individuals that tend to cluster together, while
each individual seems to be moving in a random direction. It involves a process of
mutual interaction, self-organization and interaction with the environment to solve
complex problems through the collective behavior. This article discusses how individual efforts can
be coordinated to achieve a common goal using Swarm Intelligence
(SI).
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
HR CONSULTANCY
HR Branding : Tackling Inherent Challenges
-- Indranil Banerjee
The organization system expects the Human Resource (HR) department to have its
own branding as a service organization. However, HR branding, which works significantly as
a retention tool, has often faced internal conflicts, especially due to socio-political equation
and the ownership issue. Both the inter and intra-functional professional limitation of HR adds
to this. HR branding is, basically, professing an organization value system and thus, requires
a cautioned approach, else the whole exercise may lead to loss of credibility. This article
attempts to examine the needs for harnessing a comprehensive approach before the roll out initiative.
© 2010 Indranil Banerjee. All Rights Reserved.
RECRUITMENT
Recruitment by HR Consulting Firms
-- Saswati Nanda
This article is based on HR consulting firms and discusses its features and business
process. The focus is on recruitment as a challenging function from the perspective of a
consultant/recruiter. The article throws light on understanding the mindset of jobseekers and the vital
role of a consultant as a link between the jobseekers and the organizations.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
TALENT MANAGEMENT
Talent Management : A Critical Imperative for Organizations
-- NR Aravamudhan
Talent management, like it or lump it, is here to stay for a long haul and it may the change
the way HR department functions. Undoubtedly, people are the biggest source of
competitive advantage today. If organizations are keen on leapfrogging the competition, then the
talent needs to be seamlessly harnessed and managed. This article examines the imperatives
of talent management, the key drivers fuelling the trend towards it, the sense of ownership
vis-à-vis talent management and strategies to be adopted to make talent management very effective.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
COMMUNICATION AND TRAINING
Cross-cultural Training : Communicating Internationally
-- Jitha G Nair
Cultural adjustment is considered a must for expatriate achievement abroad. One way to
improve this adjustment is by providing employees with the knowledge and awareness of
suitable customs and behaviors of the host country through Cross-cultural Training (CCT). There
are countless stories of lost businesses, failed marketing campaigns, unsuccessful
partnerships, tarnished corporate reputations and extremely expensive mistakes that could have
been prevented with some cautious cultural preparation. This article tries to discover a
theoretical framework on cultural adjustment and examines its relevance to CCT. The major objective is
to prepare suitable content for training that is to be implemented at various phases before
and during the expatriate assignment.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
HPWS
Trajectory Towards High Performance Work Systems
-- Shruti Murthy
When the world economy started melting down to deep financial crisis, India though
suffering its impact, is slowly returning back to track. Thanks to the farsightedness of the
pragmatic leadership, the global financial meltdown has had minimal effect on India. The
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank recognized India's contribution in handling the
global financial meltdown. In this era of economic crisis, implementation of
high-performance systems in organizations has become more relevant than ever. This article explains how
HR managers need to translate the firm's new strategy into unambiguous, tangible
High Performance Work Systems (HPWS).
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
CASE STUDY
Mahindra Satyam's Virtual Pool
Program : Managing Talent in a Downturn
-- Vandana Jayakumar
Triggered by the subprime mortgage crisis, the US financial crisis (2008), resulted in
a sudden downfall in all the major economic indicators leading to unprecedented
layoffs the world over. Amidst these layoffs, Satyam Computer Services Ltd., was hit by
an internal financial scam, aggravating its situation more than any other Indian
IT company. As the future of the company hung in a dilemma, Tech Mahindra bought
a controlling stake in the organization and declared that it had to solve the problem
of surplus workforce at Satyam, which ranged between 7,000-10,000
associates. Amidst speculations of massive job losses, the company announced an
innovative scheme - the Virtual Pool Program (VPP) - to address the issue of surplus
workforce, while at the same time, retaining talent. However, can VPP be called as an
effective talent management strategy amidst the downturn? VPP has also been called as
an indirect way of laying off people.
© 2009 IBSCDC. All Rights Reserved.
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