Fire in the Belly - A quest for intrinsically motivated people

Readers and Collaborators ,

Over the last 3-4 years I have tried to research on why some people have fire in the belly so to speak and some don't . I am talking about this from the organisational work perspective.

How do we identify people who are intrinsically motivated . People who wish to achieve something in life , more than just normal existential living and working , people who are driven by passion for very high quality of work or strong sense of on time performance or thirst for knowledge or innovation.

As I traveled and worked with various clients , I have gathered stories , stories of phenomenal achievements be it personal or professional . I have tried also to deduce and try to find out what are the common elements in these stories . Is there a common thread which gives us an inkling in the thought processes of Indian Executives / Managers / Workers which makes them have and demonstrate "Fire in the Belly".

As I walk on this journey of exploration , I am also coming across other dilemmas like loyalty vs competence , strong spirited high achievers vs moderate performing "nice" colleagues. In my discussions with various CEO's a few other questions have also come up like performance vs trust etc.

I will be attempting to share these stories and my interpretations in this blog series to try and unravel for myself and all those who are interested in this topic the reasons , genesis , contributors , dissuasion's  for "Fire in the Belly".

I tried to experiment also in the last 4 to 5 years by looking to hire a variety of individuals in my organisation , testing my theories ( some spectacularly successful and others miserable failures). I will try and share my learning from that as well 

Please contribute if you have any stories to tell or opinions , your own experiences , insights on this topic .

#Unknotted #Leadership ; Case Study : Leadership Pipeline Development

Case Study : :Leadership Pipeline Development 

Automotive Sector

Business Need / Challenge –  Building Leadership Pipeline

To build a leadership pipeline for Senior Management roles using assessment centres as a qualifying tool for evaluating individuals, identifying gaps and creating IDP to address those gaps.

Our Approach

1. The methodology was to identify key competencies required at each level of leadership and assess those competencies using multiple tools and assessors.
2. The assessment tools were designed in a way that they address various competencies and levels at which they are expected to be demonstrated by the individuals.
3. To seek multidimensional view, insights were assimilated from various stakeholders who engage with the individuals.
4. A rigorous assessment was carried out to evaluate the individuals who are identified as successors or potential individuals for various roles.
5. Taking into account the response from various stakeholders and results of the assessment centre final individuals report was designed stating positives, development needs and action plans which can help them bridge the gaps to become more relevant for the leadership role. 
6. Development interventions planned and executed and re calibration done including coaching interventions to ensure that the leadership pipeline agenda was kept in focus both at personal level and organisational level

How we generated value?

• 1)      The analysis of the assessment was then being used to derive a 9-box grid and according to the placement of the individuals and their readiness to take up new roles were identified.
• 2)      Leadership Development became more targeted, specific and sensitive to the present and future needs.
• 3)      Actual movement of people in leadership roles took place and demonstrated change in both leadership styles, outcomes and behaviour for targeted individuals 

#UnKnotted#Retention : Case Study : Using HR Analytics to reduce attrition in BFSI

Case Study : Using HR Analytics to reduce attrition in BFSI

Business Need / Challenge – Employee Acquisition and Retention

• ·         High Attrition and low vintage at FLS and First line supervisor levels
• ·         Consistent Quality of hires
• ·         Employees felt disengaged/ de-motivated

Our Approach ?

1. ·         Augment sourcing efforts around internet, employee and business referral, social media etc. to get a higher candidate pool and reduce sourcing cost
2. ·         Source-mix analysis to find the right source mix for optimizing cost and quality
3. ·         Identification of the various quadrants and variables of dissonance leading to the business challenge
4. ·         No Sample but all hires and exits taken as a set for a period of six months on a concurrent basis
5. ·         A freewheeling dialogue at various intervals on the employee life cycle with all the employees
6. ·         This led to clear scoring both on a rating scale and quantitative analysis around the various factors of dissonance and a cumulative month on month analysis helped analyse the trends
7. ·         The analytics conducted was stark , precise leading to clear action items
8. ·         The action items which were quite specific were implemented and its effectiveness was measured as more dialogues kept happening over the period

How we generated value?

• ·         Specific understanding of key factors of dissonance leading to attrition
• ·         Concurrent diagnosis helped in increasing the ability to prevent high or good performer attrition cases
• ·         Enhanced ability to make management decisions at specific levels  to resolve issues
• ·         Increased ability to predict attrition and timing of such attrition thus creating a lead indicator dashboard.

#UnKnotted #Synergy : Case Study - Productivity and HR Operating Model

Case Study - Productivity and HR Operating Model 

Industry : Engineering and Manufacturing 

Business Need / Challenge 

• ·         Due to role ambiguities and redundancies, workforce productivity was getting hampered
• ·         Business heads expectations from the HR department was to be more business savvy and proactive
• ·         Significant amount of time was being spent on non core activities
• ·         Main objective was to transform the HR Department to partner with the business function in achieving goal of doubling the revenues in 3 years

Our Approach ?

1. ·         We carried out Time Activity analysis, measured Key Productivity Metrics and performed Operating Expenses analysis to estimate how value can be generated optimally.
2. ·         We redefined HR processes such as career path planning which was backed by automated technology support, the retention policy and designed a corporate induction program
3. ·         We identified key capabilities and built an operating model incorporating the key competencies required for each of the roles
4. ·         We conducted a responsibility accountability mapping in order to reduce redundancies and ambiguities in employee roles
5. ·         We recommended increasing the outsourced service components in order to reduce the time spent on non core activities.

How we generated value? 

• ·         Recommended Year-By-Year (3 years) transition to achieve industry benchmarks for various Productivity Metrics
• ·         Analysed all operating expenses, carried out studies to look for best outsourcing partners providing similar quality service at lower cost
• ·         Identified role ambiguities and overlaps to resolve dissonance in present structure with new HR operating model

Below is the proposed operating model for HR department –

Resolving concurrency of engagement issues and directing limited HR bandwidth

There are several industries where having a distributed workforce based in branch offices or stores is a common scenario.

Interestingly many of these also have a relatively higher degree of attrition compared to workforce's concentrated in few work environments.

Another myth is that we actually can use demographic information to determine homogeneous employee groups. We believe demographics should be replaced with motivators.

We have been studying these for various facets on employment experience for the last three years now. We have theorized to create a model for effective people management in such scenarios and are trying to present this in a simple way.

Some key people challenges in a distributed workforce scenario

• The primary engagement channel is supervisor. It is impossible and cost prohibitive to provide either HR support or any other form of support on a full time basis to branches/locations
• While corporate offices / HQ’s create policies / guidelines , the implementation is always driven by regional HR with the local manager as the fulcrum point
• There is known variation in interpretation / adaptation of such policies/guidelines and generally the reason for such is business context/contingencies. In many cases they are not implemented or ignored as well. 
• Most events / information that head offices receive are in a lag fashion and there is very little that is concurrent or that will help resolve issues while they are occurring.

The current preferred method of understanding the degree of engagement is a sampling based voluntary survey once a year and analysis and actions arising from that have a lag by about 3 to 6 months.

So by the time you have acted on feedback many who actually gave feedback have left.
The data used for decisions is largely a gut feel or anecdotal data and many times generalized from a single discussion.

Some questions have emerged from this study

•  How do I know if policies/guidelines are being followed consistently everywhere
•  Can I know how well my employees are engaged or are disengaged at different points of their life cycle
• How do I know of issues / challenges which may be de motivating to people as they happen so that I can do something about them
• Can I really get some early indications of dis- engaged employees especially the high / moderate  performing ones so that I can take some corrective actions to prevent where possible this category of attrition
• How do I best use the limited HR bandwidth that I have at my disposal to direct them to the spots where it is really required. 
• Can I convert some of my lag indicators to lead indicators on performance potential
•  How do I know where I am failing to provide the employment experience that I promised during hiring to the individual.

I will try and answer these questions in the next post using a method we think works after having tested this across multiple companies .

Meanwhile - please give your comments