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Special Edition
BUDDINGPROFESSIONAL
POINT OF VIEW
THE
Special Edition June 2015

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Table of Contents
Editorial 3
Article by student -IQ or EQ for a Leader 4
Snippets-HR Now & Next 7
• TV Rao on L&D 7
• Soni Bhattacharya on L&D 8
• Maggie on Payroll 9
• Jayanth on Recognition 10
• Ashish Mittal on HR Auditing 13
The Conundrum 14
• Nurturing and Managing Gen Y workforce 14
From the world of HR 15
Student Community Updates 17
• Student connect program 17
• Project swayamvar 18

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Editorial
Pursuing excellence with an open mind. A mind open to explore and ex-
periment. A mind willing to test new waters and cross the boundaries.
This helps the person to learn and unlearn.
Today, the business world has become so volatile that nothing can be guar-
anteed to stay forever. There is always a fear of losing out in the great race
to become the No.1. Thus, the need to attain the quality of being agile has
become important more than ever. The question is, how do we attain this
quality?
As part of the student body of an organization like NHRD, we would like
to facilitate events and competitions that focus on the quality of agility.
We invite your thoughts on how we could do this beginning with the stu-
dent community in and around Bangalore.
This issue begins with the thoughts of Avik Sengupta, XIME on Emotional
Quotient.
We are proud to include a section where experts from the industry pos-
sessing varied experience in various domains have come forward and
shared their thoughts on their area of expertise.
The conundrum features a case study written by Vinitha A Johny.

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IQ or EQ for a Leader
Avik Sengupta
Xavier Institute Of Management & Entrepreneurship
That afternoon my smartphone buzzed with a breaking news coming in
from one of the news channels about Mahendra Singh Dhoni retiring
from the longest format of the game. Next day all the newspapers and
print media carried a eulogy about the most successful test captain of the
country who was very recently facing the heat for the poor performance
of the team down under. But this strange contradiction in public opinion
is a part of life for any leader be it in the sports or corporate arena. And
this is where a leader needs to exhibit a higher level of emotional intelli-
gence in comparison to his followers or team mates (call them by whatever
name).Which brings me to the basic question of this article as to what is
emotional intelligence and how is it more relevant for a leader? Emotional
intelligence (EI) refers to the ability to perceive, control and evaluate one’s
own and other’s emotions. This information has to be then used to guide
his own /other’s behavior. Some psychologists rate this as more important
than even Intelligence quotient. Imagine a world where you couldn’t un-
derstand when a friend was feeling sad or when a co-worker was angry.
You would be planning your future course of actions by literally staying
clueless of your teammate or partner’s existing feelings. Now that’s dan-
gerous because when you are unable to feel the pulse of your coworkers
you might end up with very little or negligible support for your actions.
And that’s where it really gets tricky for a leader as he has to emphasize
and understand his as well as other’s emotions well to take the team along
with him. Scan any great leader in the past and present, you will always
find them capable of understanding or judging emotions better than oth-
ers. That’s what made them great leaders.
So what are the signs of an individual high on EI? The most important
sign is his ability to influence other’s opinions by gazing at their emo-
tions. Take Mahatma Gandhi for example. He was extremely good at in-
fluencing people’s present emotions of resentment against the British Raj
to guide them to follow a course of action depicted by him to express their
ire against the same in a peaceful and legitimate manner.

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So good was he that even Nelson
Mandela found himself following the
Mahatma’s ideals to guide his war
against apartheid in South Africa.
Now that’s signature of influencing
skills born out of a leader’s emotional
intelligence.
Managing one’s own self better than others is also a key hallmark of a
leader high on EI. Empathetic listening is one such attribute. Lee Iacocca-
former CEO Chrysler Corporation once said-”I only wish I could find an
institute that teaches people how to listen. Business people need to listen
at least as much as they need to talk. Too many people fail to realize that
real communication goes in both directions.” Why don’t most ordinary
leaders listen? Because they prioritize their emotions higher than others.
If one can develop this attribute his EI scores are bound to increase great-
ly. Another attribute I can think of is labeling one’s own emotions as and
when they come. When anger reigns the mind, the person realizes quickly
that it is anger and when it’s extra happiness he is quick brand it as the
same. This can greatly help a leader see himself as separate from his emo-
tions.
Thirdly, a leader with high EI treats criticism as a part of life rather than
a life changing event. He only changes those aspects of his characteristics
which are important for bringing a better performance rather than trying
to entirely change himself according to the critics’ wishes. When Apple
decided to reinstate Steve Jobs back as their CEO, the company was strug-
gling to make its mark in the industry facing tough competition from
rivals like Microsoft. It was the same Steve Jobs who took over after he
was asked to leave in favor of a better leader and after he came back there
was only a little change in his style of working which at that time investors
considered unworthy of a CEO. And the same Steve Jobs took his com-
pany to the Apple we know as of today.

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EI is a necessary evil for almost everyone. Psychologists can’t emphasize
this fact enough that today in a world of rising competition we are to keep
a stable flow of our emotions and keep the negative ones mostly at bay.
This is even more important for a leader or a manger aspiring to achieve
greatness in his field. As rightly said –“one must know how to manage
oneself before managing others”.
REFERENCES
1. Psychology.com
2. wikipedia

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Snippets- HR Now & Next
Compiled by Rachel Mathew and Zeeshan Khateeb
1. What in your opinion is current scenario of Recruitment/Learning
& development/Rewards & Recognition/Engagement/Compensation/
Technology/Your Area of Expertise?
Recognition and rewards and L&D are good and growing. A lot of inno-
vations are taking place.
However most of them are in the new economy sectors and still have to
catch up among manufacturing and the old economy Industry. There is a
need to articulate a good philosophy of making employees feel significant
and talented. Recognition and rewards as well as L&D serve this purpose
if properly articulated and implemented.
2. What is the future growth & development possibilities in Recruit-
ment / Learning & development/Rewards & Recognition / Engagement
/ Compensation / Technology / Your Area of Expertise?
Learning is continuous and every individual should take charge of his/
her own learning and development and be less dependent on HR Depart-
ments. Recognition mechanism should change and line managers should
be empowered and encouraged to innovate in different forms of recogniz-
ing their juniors. There should be a recognition philosophy than a policy.
TV Rao
Chairman, TVR Learning Syatems
Learning & Development

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1. What in your opinion is current scenario of Learning & development?
In our experience, the scenario is extremely positive and the future looks
good. When we started on our journey to offer unique experiential train-
ings, often leveraging art-based methods, we met with a lot of skepticism.
Many early client contacts were unsure of the possibilities and outcomes
of such approaches. I am very happy to note that we are seeing a change in
that mindset. Over the years, we have seen a steady growth in demand for
our methodologies, as more and more client partners eagerly adopt these.
This has helped us now take our offerings to over 60 Fortune100 compa-
nies, across 9 countries, in a span of 4 years.
We are seeing L&D leaders come to us with much greater understanding
of needs and clear expectations, and we are offering them solutions which
are both exciting as well as enriching over the longer term. We are using
some of the most exciting methodologies in the world - from using Paint-
ing in a Negotiation Skills program to 3D Modeling in a Creative Problem
Solving Lab to Forum Theatre to look at Conflict Management. And the
results are fantastic. We are excited...
2. What are the future growth & development possibilities in Learning
& development?
The future looks very bright. The Learning & Development space is evolv-
ing into a more need-based, outcome-oriented path for enhancement and
empowerment. We are seeing greater interest in developing human capital
Most forms of recognition do not require financial support. Similarly
employees should be encouraged to take charge of their learning. How
about budgeting a 5% CTC of every employee to be used for self directed
learning and development with justification of ROI to company?
Soni Bhattacharya
Founder & CEO,The painted Sky

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Payroll has always been the less glamorous part of HR, dealing more
with numbers than people. In fact, there are quite a few organizations
where this sits within Finance rather than HR. But payroll also remains the
#1 function that needs to up and running when employees start working
for an organization. Naturally the focus on Payroll has been more about
accuracy and efficiency rather than adding any bells and whistles.
than ever before, and a demand for effective and impactful interventions
that help managers and leaders overcome skill gaps and self-limiting be-
haviors. Be it in our experiential trainings, classroom based programs or
in Executive Coaching practices, we are noticing a surge of demand.
I think that over the next few years, we will see simultaneous growth and
consolidation in our field. We will continue to see a journey up the value
curve, and more need for integrated and immersive trainings that take
participants on journeys of self-discovery and power. The demand to look
beyond the functional, to the behavioral and the strategic will increase as
more young managers take up leadership roles. With that will continue
the demand for novel approaches and high-impact methods that trans-
form the learning experience and make the takeaways stick!
Payroll continues to remain a critical function as the compliance environ-
ment organizations operate in becomes more and more complex. As work
gets more global and distributed, accounting and paying for work and
paying across geographies is becoming a challenge.
Payroll
Maggie
Director and co founder, Employee Experts

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As companies innovate on rewarding performance, payroll continues to
be the key not only as the execution engine for such reward payments but
also the mechanism to ensure companies remain tax compliant. Payroll
also continues to be the top function to be outsourced. It is on top of the
maturity curve when it comes to outsourcing and also adoption of cloud
technologies. Aggregators and vendors in this space are now taking this
opportunity to provide value added services to customers. Business in-
sights based on payroll data and operational insights on efficiency of this
function are some of the analytics leaders in this space are beginning to
provide.
That is just the tip of the iceberg. Payroll is the original big data that con-
tains cultural, work style and economic indicators waiting to be tapped
into. That will be the next big journey for payroll.
Short Analysis of Recognition Practices
Jayanth
Entrepreneur
Over the last few years, there has been a lot of
talk about Indian companies adopting global
best practices in a number of management ar-
eas. One of the questions, clients invariably ask
me when I meet with them, is to find out how
other Indian companies are adopting “Recogni-
tion” and how much they spend on “Recogni-
tion”. I did an analysis of 30 large companies in
different industries I had met with (think of it as
the Sensex companies for Recognition),
and collected some information about their Recognition activities and
spends. Here are some of the key findings:

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1) RECOGNITION ADOPTION:
Adoption of Recognition as a strategic tool varies from being virtually
non-existent (in one case) to being heavily integrated within their culture
(in 2 companies, the practices seem to be robust enough to the extent,
that my colleague and President of the Recognition Management Institute
(www.realrecognition.com), Roy Saunderson (http://rideau.com/blogs/
roy-saunderson), believes that they could be a candidate for RPI’s Recog-
nition Best Practices award (www.recognition.org – Recognition Profes-
sionals International), if the companies applied.
2) RECOGNITION SPEND:
Not surprisingly, the spend on Recognition is much lower than the North
American standard of over 2% of annual Payroll costs. The annual Rec-
ognition spends in India range from .002% to about 1% of payroll costs,
with the average and median both around 0.5% of payroll costs. To put
the figures in perspective, if a company has about 15,000 employees and
an average employee salary of INR 200,000 per annum, then they would
be spending around INR 1.5 Crores annually on various Recognition ini-
tiatives. A number of companies on my list are probably spending more
indirectly (e.g. travel costs related to big recognition events, additional
travel costs for overseas holidays etc.), but I have used conservative fig-
ures based on whatever credible information I had with me.
3) RECOGNITIONREACH:
A bulk of the Recognition spend (over 70% in most companies) is focused
on the top performers (10-15% of the employee population). This is an
area companies have to really think about and determine how they can
adopt Recognition in a manner that can touch a larger employee popula-
tion – I am not professing recognizing and awarding employees for things
that don’t merit recognition, but companies need to design recognition
programs to recognize employees for exhibiting behaviours/company val-
ues and doing activities that drive towards the vision and business objec-
tives.Thefocuscurrentlyseemssquarelyfocusedonbusinessperformance
providing very few opportunities for the non-superstars to get recognized
in a meaningful manner.

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4) AWARDS:
The most popular award for top performers is an international holiday
with Bangkok clearly being the favourite destination. Other popular des-
tinations were Goa, Dubai and Malaysia/Singapore. Cash and Cash equiv-
alent awards are very popular and extensively used.
5) RECOGNITION PROGRAM OWNERS:
Most of the Recognition programs seem to be driven by the HR resources
supporting a business rather than by the line managers in the business.
System adoption for Recognition programs is minimal (a few companies
use their intranet and a simple plug-in solution to automate some of the
processes), with a bulk of process around nominating and awarding em-
ployees being done manually by the HR resources. Two companies have
adopted a globally proven and robust platform.
THE FUTURE:
A structured employee recognition program will be table sakes in a few
years in India. The key will be on how well companies are able to build
a culture of recognition and focus on the recognition component rather
than reward component.

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1.What is in your opinion the current scenario of HR auditing?
In today’s scenario, HR audit has become an integral part of doing busi-
ness & establishes process that assesses the change in HR’s role & activi-
ties, discusses the external & internal forces affecting the business includ-
ing risk management & optimum use of HR resources.
HR function as such began more as a clerical function & quite contrary is
now viewed as a strategic partner in planning & attaining organizational
policies & goals. In today’s competitive business environment, wherein
there are high pressures from the Client / stakeholders, HR department
has to accept the challenge of delivering more with less, while contribut-
ing high value toward business goals.
Currently, HR is unable to keep pace with business. HR professionals need
reskilling & a vital need for reinventing the role of HR is exceptionally
critical.
2.What are the future growth and development possibilities in HR Au-
diting?
As Organizations achieve increased revenue & higher profitability with
scarcer staff, a critical element of the HR audit would be a right under-
standing of the employment risks faced by the organization, a measure-
ment of the risk, and methods to eliminate, mitigate, or manage these
risks.
HR Audit should provide measurements & metrics to the top manage-
ment to make business decisions. It would continue to throw light on the
key HR processes and practices which need to be adaptive and responsive
to business changes, as these practices have huge impact on employee mo-
rale, performance & delivery.
Ashish Mittal
Deputy General Manager - HR,
Pearson India Education Services Pvt. Ltd

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The Conundrum
Nurturing and Managing Gen Y workforce
Sam worked as a Senior Consultant at Lead Consulting Solutions, CA. He
was a seasoned professional with 10+ years of experience and had suc-
cessfully provided consulting support to clients across various business
sectors. However, Sam was described as an autocratic and bossy person
by his colleagues.
Joseph, a University Graduate joined Lead Consulting Solutions as a
Junior Consultant. Sam was assigned as his mentor. After few days, Jo-
seph started to feel that the opportunity to learn at Lead was very nar-
row as he was not receiving enough practical exposure related to his
job. He approached Sam with his concern but Sam replied to him say-
ing “Sorry Joseph!! I cannot assign you to support any of my clients at
such an early stage and moreover any mistake or irresponsible behav-
ior from your end may affect my reputation”. He assigned few backend
jobs to him and asked him to learn the basics of performing a job first.
Though Joseph took the advice on a positive note, but after few days
the enthusiasm and creativity levels in Joseph’s work drastically fell. He
began to doubt his abilities and concluded that he will never be able to
handle the tasks that he was hired for. Feeling depressed over this, he
finally quit the job at Lead.
1. Why do you think Sam did not pay attention to Joseph’s concern?
2. What do you think Joseph should have done rather than quitting?
3. Suggest a technique to solve this issue faced by Gen Y’s in several
organizations
Write in your answers to vinitha.aj@employeeexperts.com
Vinitha A Johny
Consultant, Employee Experts Solutions Pvt Ltd, BLR

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From the world of HR
To woo employees, govt to review incentives on qualifications:
The centre is planning to review the incentives given to its employees on
acquiring higher qualifications while they are in service. All central gov-
ernment employees are entitled for a lump-sum incentive on acquiring
fresh qualifications. The quantum of incentive varies from Rs 2,000 to Rs
10,000 on the basis of qualification. However, it is uniform for all posts
irrespective of employee classification, grade or the department. The De-
partment of Personnel and Training (DOPT) has been considering in-
cluding additional qualifications or deleting some of them from a 16-year-
old list. – Economic Times, March 27, 2015
Small cities may beat metro in percentage salary hikes:
To retain talent base in tier II cities, companies are churning out bigger
percentage hikes in comparison to metro/tier I locations, say recruiters.
Companies expanding into tier II cities and regions such as Punjab,

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Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Kerala and some North-
Eastern states. Most organisations that have expanded in tier II and III
cities are saving cost by 10-20 per cent, says a NASSCOM report. All this
is pushing up demand for talent in tier II locations. Tier II cities have a
much lower benchmark of around 30-40 per cent in comparison to big
cities/metros. Thus, giving out salary hikes will look higher in percentage
but may be lower in absolute increase. –TOI, April 15, 2015
Flipkart’s chief product officer looks to woo global talent:
PunitSoni, the recently appointed chief product officer at India’s largest
e-commerce player Flipkart, is a man with mission. Just 3 weeks into his
new job, Soni, who had an 8 year of experience at Google launching vari-
ous products and helping turn around Motorola Mobility- wants Motorola
Mobility- wants to position Flipkart as not only a global tech powerhouse
but also on getting amazing talent which is global in nature. His addition
along with PeeyushRanjan, another Google veteran is in line with the e-
commerce major’s thrust on sharpening its technology play as it taps into
talent from Silicon Valley’s fabled tech giants like Google. They are focus-
ing on bringing in large number of people from across the globe to work
in the organisation and live happily, both professionally and personally.-
TOI, May 8, 2015
Aon Hewitt builds HR research initiative with India Inc, academics:
To support world class, India-specific research in the areas of human re-
source and leadership, HR consultant Aon Hewitt has built a unique initia-
tive along with the companies such as Mahindra& Mahindra, ICICI Bank,
Vodafone, Genpact, Deloitte and Essar besides academics from top busi-
ness schools. The made-in-India programme will address key HR, talent
and people management issue faced by industry leaders and organisation
alike. The vision is to bridge the gap between academia and industry im-
peratives through data driven robust research that will act as the agenda
for organisation to implement at the workplace. –TOI, May 8, 2015

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Student Community Updates
SJCBA, Bangalore in association with NHRD Bangalore organized a Stu-
dent connect program in the format of a panel discussion on the topic
“Application of Social Media in HR - The IBM Story”. The event was con-
ducted on 28th February 2015. Mr.Sanjiv Jain, Associate Director HR at
IBM shared some of the practices of IBM with the students. The event was
truly a learning experience in to the new practices developing in the field
of HR with respect to social media.
Rachel Mathew – MSRIM

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Swayamwar
I. PROJECT SWAYAMVAR- NHRD Bangalore
One of the endeavors at the National HRD Network, Bangalore Chapter
has been to facilitate HR projects for HRStudents. Through this we try
to bring a confluence of student trainees, industries / corporate and the
academic institutions.“Project Swayamvar” (project Mela) enables corpo-
rates to identify students to offer projects to the MBA / MSc HR students.
This is one of the approaches towards enhancing people practices in the
industry. It also encourages mentorship in organizations. This year, about
100 students registered and about 50+ students were offered HR projects
by about 25+companies.The entire endeavor was led by students this year.
A special mention of the student team at XIME who has worked dilligent-
ly and contributed immensely to the success of Swayamvar2015!! XIME
was kind to host Project Swayamvar for the year
NHRD Bangalore recognizes the efforts of thefollowing student leaders.
Avik Sengupta- XIME
Sourrendere Manoharan –XIME
Anusha Danamaraju – XIME
Nipun Kunaboina - XIME
Swayamwar was led by Rachel Mathew and Zeeshan Khateeb.
Rachel, Avik and Sourrendre will be supporting the student council as
student mentors from this academic year.

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Write your feedback, Submit articles to
nhrdstudentconnect@gmail.com
Speak to Rachel - 7829746164, Zeeshan - 9902105377 or
Sunitha - 9845318788
Mrinal,
NITK,
Surathkal
Jaya,
XIME,
BLR
Rachel,
MSRIM,
BLR
Ramisha,
XIME,
BLR
June 2015
Special Edition Newsletter Compiled by: