Unemployability–decoded -I

India is a country with a population of more than 1.30 billion.  India happens to be a young country with 50% of its population under the age of 25 years and the two third of the population under 35 years. There are around 74 lakh students (various streams) passing out year on year from around 37,000 educational institutions across the country (open source)

Does it not sound terrific? 

Before we say yes, let us look at another couple of interesting data points. The GER (Gross enrollment ratio which refers to the percentage of population that gets enrolled for education) is 15% which is much less as compared to the developed countries. The employable talent is less, may be 20% to 25%.  Hence, it’s no surprise that there is a shortage of talent supply.  The actual supply of good talent is less than the demand and it is outstripping the demand. That’s what the ground reality is.

In this blog, I want to share my experience on why the employability is less and what needs to be done.  After seeing many thousands of students for more than a decade in Chennai and in the Tier -2 cities of Tamil Nadu, I feel that there are two fundamental things that majorly contribute to non- employability. One is lack of  Fundamentals and communication skills. I would share my thoughts on these two aspects.

Get your fundamentals right: When I interview candidates, I see that the non-employable talents lack the fundamentals, even the very basics. There is absolutely no application of what they studied. This includes even those who’ve got very high score in their academics.  A few sample examples are given below:

# A commerce student with Income Tax as his favorite subject not knowing various IT Slabs prevailing. OR stating that he studied in the first semester and he cannot remember now.

# A chemistry graduate (with a very good percentile / percentage) not able to tell which chemical is called laughing gas.

# A graduate with statistics as his favorite subject not knowing a good example for what sampling is.

# A Math student not knowing how to calculate percentage profit which we as part of our schooling, may be in 6^th or 7^th grade.

What do you think could be the root-causes?

# Cramming: As I see, the major root-cause to this problem is students are cramming without deeper understanding.  It helps to get good grades and it can help only to that extent.  The scariest part is you continue to think that you are too good till the reality hits you hard on your face that you are good only in terms of marks on the certificate but you lack the fundamentals and application of what you’ve studied.

It’s like believing that you can swim well but when you are in the pool, you realize that you are drowning and none of your skills that you thought you’ve learnt is helping you stay afloat.

# Short-cut approaches:  The purpose of education is not good grades alone. It should rather help us apply what we study, understand the fundamentals, organize and communicate our thoughts confidently & effectively and face the real work.  This is doable with 3 years of full time graduate course provided we approach it as a full-time preparation, not as a last minute crash preparation.  But unfortunately, most of us do the later part.  The preparation starts only in the last minute when the exam fever catches. Contrast this scenario with someone who has been preparing to really understand the subjects in its real sense with some amount of application right from the day -1 and on an on-going basis. These are the candidates who emerge successful even if their grades are little lower than the others.

Remember, learning requires a step-by-step continuous process and it cannot to be cut short or short-circuited.

# Quality of educational institute and systems:  Attributing our failure to this is like externalizing the reasons and not owning it ourselves.  We will never learn to hold ourselves accountable. The most competent and intelligent talents also come from the same system that we blame.

No doubt the system can be better.  But one cannot wait till it gets better and keep blaming it. Rather we should do what best we can do and what is within our control.  

A perfect example for real learning– A space to odyssey (source – The Hindu)

All of us know that India launched 20 satellites on 22^nd June ( PSLV C-34).  A very proud moment. Probably a less know fact is, one of the satellites launched to monitor greenhouse gas emission was designed and built by a bunch of 12 BE students from Sathyabama college, Chennai. They were working on this right from 2010.  Another interesting fact is most of them come from small towns.

I would write the remaining part in my next blog.  Do watch this space for more interesting updates. 

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Being fair

If you are in a role where you are expected to take decision, manage conflicts and manage people, one of the most important things that you would be expected out of you is being fair. This is one trait that could really make or break your career and your reputation in your team and organization.

And most importantly, it’s not just enough to be fair. You should also ensure that you are perceived to be fair.  Otherwise, it is as bad as not being fair. The onus of ensuring that lies on the leader, not the team members.

Example - Let us say you have a recruitment executive who thinks that his performance is exceptional.  However, you feel that it is not though has done a good job and carries good attitude and commitment. How to deal with such a scenario.

Approach -1: Have an one-on-one discussion and tell him that though you’ve performed well, your overall performance needs improvement. You’ve not closed all the positions on time and you’ve not reduced the recruitment cost. Hence you would be rated as meeting expectation only. All the best and show improvement on TAT and reduce the recruitment cost.

Approach-2- Collect the data and tell him that your average closure TAT (TAT is the time taken to close an open position) stands at 45 days as against the expected TAT of 30 days.  The recruitment cost should have been brought down by 25% but it stands at 5% (reduction %) only. You need to work these two goals to be rated as exceptional.

While the Approach -1 in generic, the Approach-2 shows clearly where he stands, the gaps and what more needs to be done to be exceptional.

Hence it’s important to take this step to ensure that there is no room for misunderstanding and things are communicated transparently instead of leaving it to the individual to figure out what could have gone wrong and perceive you to be unfair.

There will be lots of situations that you would come across like handling performance-challenged employees, internal team conflicts, Performance assessments, compensation reviews etc.,  Even if you deal with them them fairly, do ensure that the rationale / data behind the actions and decisions are communicated to the stake holder so you are not perceived to be unfair. 

How to ensure that when you are fair, you are perceived to be fair too.

# Transparency is the key- Be transparent and communicate openly with all the stake holders.  Don’t restrict or hold the information OR don’t think it’s not important to share every rationale / data or information behind a decision / action. Here the intention is not to make someone happy but to share the information and data in a transparent manner that will put things into right perspective.  

# Data can change the perceptions– The only way you can change one’s perception is by providing data and sufficient data and on an on-going basis. Data will  put things into the right perspective and it can eliminate wrong perceptions.

# Opportunity of being heard –Do provide an opportunity of being heard instead of closing the door.  Be approachable and encourage employees to approach you. 

Did anyone tell you that you’ve been unfair to them though you are sure that you were very fair?  If yes, your reputation is at stake and you need to see how to fix it from the next time onwards.

It’s not enough being Fair. You’ve to be perceived to be fair too. What majority of the people perceive of you is your Brand. Do take care of your Brand.

Do share your experiences.. 

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Listening

Right from our childhood, we’ve been taught how to read, write and speak.  But we’ve never been taught how to listen.  But, listening is as important as or may be more important than reading, writing and speaking. If you are not a good listener, you are not a good communicator. 

Listening is one of the important aspects in communication skill. It’s a people skill too, ie., those who don’t listen cannot be good in relating to people and they cannot earn the respect and take others into confidence.

Good leaders who can influence the other people are good listeners.  Without listening, one cannot be a good leader.

Listening means understanding, caring, empathizing and respecting.  If you don’t listen, it just means that you don’t understand, care, empathize and you don’t respect. That’s the message that would be perceived by the other person.

Let us look at few scenarios given below and ask ourselves how would we have felt ?

# You’ve a serious problem in your team which you are trying to explain to your Manager and asking for his intervention.  He is also busy with his timelines. While he is trying to listen, he is doing something on his laptop.  How would you feel? Would you feel confident that he has understood your problem? Would you rate him as a good boss?  More than his intervention, you would have preferred few minutes of his undivided attention just listening to you. 

# You are going to a Dr. for a health problem.  When you are explaining your health condition, he is not listening to you. However, he is giving you a prescription for week. Would you feel confident to follow it?  Would you feel comfortable to go to the same Doctor again even if he were to be rated as a good doctor? The chances are very unlikely.

# This one is an interesting hypothetical scenario that we can very much relate to. Let us say, your wife is talking to you and you are busy reading newspaper.  When asked if you are listening to her, you say that, “don’t you know I am capable of doing two things at a time. I am reading and listening to you as well. What do you think would be her response to you?

Do one thing at a time. Close the newspaper and listen to me NOW.. (may be on top of her voice) Period. You don’t have any other choice other than keeping the newspaper away and listening to her. (Illustration on listening told by Swami Dayanantha saraswathi in one of his speeches).

My thoughts on listening

# First let us accept and understand that, without listening, we are not  good communicators. 

# You cannot multitask when someone is talking to you. Listening needs dedicated attention. 

# Listening is more than hearing. You actively try to understand what someone is trying to say.

# When you listen, you need to listen with an open mind.

# Without effective listening, we cannot be good in inter personal skills; we cannot be good leader and managers.

# If you are not listening, you are not respecting and you are rude.

# Listening has a therapeutic value.  When you are listened to genuinely, most of times, you feel better as though your problems are already solved.

# if you don’t listen, you cannot take the other person into confidence. you cannot earn the respect and trust. You cannot lead people.

# If you are not listening, you are not humble enough.

# Listening is an active process and it needs undivided attention and focus from you.

Have you come across poor listeners and how did they make you feel whenever you interacted with them? How good are you in listening? Do share your experience. 

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Fear Motivation

Can fear motivate people? And can it be used as a tool to motivate employees at workplace? To answer the first question, yes. Fear does seem to motivate people.

Let us say you are diabetic and you have your health priorities in reverse order, ie., you are allergic to exercise and not to sweets and food. The result is you would end up eating a lot and do not worry about any physical work-outs.  You may not listen to anyone or your own self till the day you hear from your Doctor that it’s a question of life and death. You either start doing daily walking or work-outs and control your food or be prepared to reach your grave.  I am sure you know what the result would be. In almost all cases, we are sure to see the person crash-dieting, not just walking but running too. While all the other motivation could have failed, the fear motivation has succeeded.

Let us say you are student and even if you were to dislike studying, I am sure,  you are bound to take your books right before the exams. If you don’t do that, you are bound to fail in exams. You see fear motivation working here.

Fear motivation is one wherein you get motivated to do something because of the fear. The fear of facing the consequences of not doing it.  You don’t exercise, you become unhealthy. You don’t prepare for the exam, you will fail. If you don’t perform well, you will lose your job.

However, can we use it as a motivation tool at workplace?

A long time ago, Peter Drucker said, “Treat employees as volunteers”.  I see it as a very powerful statement because it redefines entirely how we need to manage and lead people. If you could treat your employees as volunteers and yet produce the results, no doubt, you are an effective leader irrespective of your title or position in the hierarchy. 

Even in Peter Drucker’s case, the fear motivation has done a miracle.  I vaguely remember from what I’ve read a very long time ago that Peter Drucker started his career as a kind of jr. journalist wherein he was to write and report various things. When his performance was not up to the mark, his Boss called him and told him just one thing straight.  “Your work is not up to the expectation. You either improve or leave in the next few weeks”. I am sure you could have guessed the result. Yes. He improved his performance drastically.

Even after this personal experience, if Peter Drucker could say that “Treat your employees as volunteers”, it only means that fear motivation is not a tool to be used to motivate employees at Workplace.

Fear motivation can only ensure bare minimum expected performance level but Excellence cannot be accomplished and effective engagement of employees cannot happen.  More than fear, one should be motivated by their inner purposes in terms of what they want to achieve in their life. It’s long-term and sustainable.

What do you think of fear motivation? Have you ever been motivated in your personal life/ professional life because of fear? Do share your experience. 

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Driving style & personality-I

I like observing people’s behavior especially in non-work context wherein there is no is no stake involved and there is no one to supervise. That’s when the natural original self tend to emerge.  I think that’s what we are, our actual self without any mask. 

I’ve been driving in our city for more than a decade and come across various interesting characters.  In this write-up, I just wanted list down some of my observations and interesting characters I've come across and tried to see if we can correlate it to their personality.  This is not scientific and it may be wrong.  

Let us have a look at these observations;

# Jumping the signal, not once but most of the time especially when there is no cop – No respect for rules and systems.  Potential policy breakers. 

# Get provoked when overtaken and they chase and try to overtake you.  Egoistic. Never prove them they are less capable. They can be a bad boss / team member.  

# They don’t let you to overtake at all:  Non co-operative. Egoistic. 

# Identifying themselves with vehicles they drive (Big SUVs/ luxury cars) and not respecting the other vehicles on the road.   They may tend to identify themselves with the position they occupy and that’s how they may relate to others, not as simple human beings. Position means a lot to them.  Power centered. They would want to throw their weight around.

# Women not allowing men to overtake: Feminist? Not sure. Cannot report to a Male boss ?

# Not stopping the car to allow someone trying to take a U turn – Non co-operative- Cannot understand other’s concerns and cannot be a good team member

# Driving fast even in small lanes without caring about others on the road – Careless attitude – No accountability

# Honking to cyclists / tri-cyclists carrying heavy-load - Less considerate or no consideration for less privileged individuals. They may lack people orientation.

# Honking – Honking even before the green signal or right after the green signal even when the vehicle before you has started moving – Impatient.

I guess we can add lot more interesting observations. Does it resonate with your observations too. Do share your thoughts.. 

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Positive bias

May be it’s a human tendency to like someone who has a trait that we also have or we like to have.  This is fine. The problem arises when we strongly believe that employees with such a trait would be good in all the other aspects too, like performance and we tend to rate their performance majorly based on that particular trait.  This is what I call it as a Positive Bias. 

To put it simply, Positive bias is one wherein you like a particular trait that you have and tend to think that employees with such traits have to be good and you take decisions primarily based on that trait rather than looking at him in a holistic manner.

Let us look at couple of examples for positive bias and see how it can lead to subjectivity and how it can affect the interest of the Organization. 

Communication as a positive bias-Scenario – 1 : 

You may like someone who is very good in communication because you are also a good communicators OR probably you’ve seen a good performer communicating well in the past.  However, the underlying truth is not all good communicators need to be good performers. Similarly, not all good performers need to be a good communicators.

A recruiter or recruitment panel with such a positive bias would tend to get carried away by one’s communication at the time of interview and could be selecting a wrong hire.  The worst is, a good performer who is not that expressive could lose a good opportunity and more than the Organization could be losing a good talent and all the advantages of having a good talent onboard. 

Remember, most of the Businesses are people-driven, especially the IT and ITes industries wherein the quality of talent would have a direct impact on the Customers’ satisfaction and eventually the Business.

Scenario – 2 :  While assessing the team members performance, a Boss with such positive bias (communication) could tend to get carried away by one’s communication and rate him higher than where he actually stands.

Punctuality as a positive Bias - Scenario – 1:  

Let us say you are a strong believer in punctuality and you think it’s a positive trait which is not debatable at all.  The problem arises when we let this particular trait overshadow all the other aspects that are to be looked at while we are making any decision- be it performance assessment or career path related decisions or a hiring decision. The reason is, not all those who are punctual need to be good performers. 

Moreover, in today’s context, especially in IT and ITes industries, wherein employees have to extend due to client calls, tight delivery timelines etc., and struggle to strike work-life balance, the concept of punctuality cannot be looked at in absolute terms.  Hence, taking any decision, just based on punctuality is not even outdated. Rather it’s an antique practice. 

To conclude, Positive Bias is as bad as negative bias and it certainly affects the objectivity of our actions. Having a bias, be it positive or negative, is like wearing colored spectacle. When you wear a colored spectacle and you see through it, you don’t see things as they are. 

Points to ponder : Do we any positive bias unknowingly? If we have to do self-introspection of our past actions, would it have affected any of our actions / decisions taken ? 

Have you come across people positive biases in your career and how did it affect you ?  Do share your experience. 

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Integrity

We know what integrity is.  To put simply without any jargon, it’s all about doing things that are right, fair and ethical. Integrity is something which is accepted universally and it’s not an opinion which could differ from person to person. It’s all about saying honestly what you do and doing honestly what you said. It’s all about following the dos and most importantly not doing the don’ts.

Every organization wants to hire employees with integrity & values and that’s the purpose of everyone spending good amount of money on background verification check-ups.  However, not all hires are good hires and there are few bad hires too.

Let us look at some examples on violation of integrity.

# Finance guy who has access to payslip / salary data is fudging his salary slip to get credit card with higher limit or higher amount of loan.

# An employee who fudges his salary slip to get loan.

# A software professional who steals proprietary codes knowingly from elsewhere and shows it as his own code with the current employer

# A Manger who refers his own team members to the competitor for some personal interest.

# Employee showing fake certificates to secure a job.

# Employee showing a fudged salary slip to negotiate higher salary with this prospective employer.

There can be endless examples to this list.

What do you do when you come across such a situation?  Give them a chance and ask them improve on their integrity and values, similar to what we do when we have performance-challenged employees?

It’s a BIG NO.

It’s ok to give an opportunity to employees who needs improvement in their performance. However, those who violate the integrity and values should be shown zero tolerance and shown the door immediately without any hesitation and second thoughts.

These are employees who act against the interest of the organization for their selfish reasons and they are the Brand-killers of the organizations. They are toxic and such rotten apples need to be weeded out in the very first instance before they cause any bigger damage to the Organization.

It does not matter even if they happen to high performers with good reputation with respect to their work related credentials. We should never mix up integrity with anything. Any violation on integrity deserves zero tolerance. Period.

Have you ever come across such bad hires ? How have you dealt with them? Do you think they should be given an opportunity to improve on their values?  Do share your experience.

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Ideal Workplace

Is there anything called Ideal workplace where there are no problems at all. We search for our ideal workplace during our career and realize that the search goes on and on.  Every workplace has problems and no workplace is problem-proof.  Wherever there are humans, there will be different perspectives, conflicts and problems.  And there is nothing wrong in that.  If there are no problems, I don’t think we would be required in the organizations. We are required only because of problems and to find solutions for the problems. 

Another point to consciously remember is the workplace is not a socializing place wherein we can expect a relaxing environment. Let us accept mentally that there will be problems and conflicts out there.  We are required to handle difficult situations, difficult people, conflicts and crisis and that’s what we are paid for and that’s what real learning is.

Few examples for what we call it as problems that we typically come across in our careers.

# Unhappy with the salary revision given and you may feel unrecognized.

# You may feel dissatisfied that you did not get the overseas opportunity

# You may have a Bully boss that you find it difficult to manage.

# You may feel dissatisfied that you are sometimes overloaded and there is no work-life balance.

We can add lot more scenarios to the examples given above.

When we quit and join another organization, what is guaranteed is existence of same kind of problems and issues and probably much more than that. 

Hence quitting is not always a good choice. If we were quit, we would keep quitting and running away from the problems. Rather, one should see how to face them confidently.

How do we thrive and perform in such an environment?

There are thee Cs that I’ve come across which can help

First C – Convince: Do take the initiative to talk to the person concerned in person and try to convince him of your case.  Most of the conflicts / disagreements can be resolved if we take this initiative without any ego and with real commitment and sincerity to get the issues resolved. It does work in most of the situations.

Second C- Get Convinced: Let us accept that as human beings, we tend to overestimate ourselves.  That leaves us with less scope for convincing ourselves.  Hence, do keep an open mind and look at yourself from a 3^rd person’s perspective so there is a very less bias in how you evaluate the situation/ how you assess yourself in the given situations. 

Third C- Change the environment – If both 1^st and 2^nd C fails, it’s better to change the workplace where you work. Its better choice for rather than continuing in the same place and cribbing about what is happening around.

Many professionals straight away jump to the third C.  Never do it unless you’ve tried first and second C.

To conclude, there is no ideal workplace.  If you were run from one place to another place because of problems, one has to keep running and there will be no end to it.

Never quit.  Face the situations. 

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How to manage Bully Managers

Every Workplace has Bully Managers and they are tolerated for their work results  except for the people-focused Organizations. In you case you happen to work with a Bully Manager, how do you have to manage him ? That’s what I am writing in this Blog.

1)Work closely rather than working away. Personal and professional relationship are two different things and let us respect the professional relationship and the person occupying the position rather than cribbing about how bad the person is. Learn to accept and work closely rather than avoiding so there is less room for misunderstandings. You have a chance to understand your boss better.

2) What is within your control: You can do 100% on what is within your control. Let us do it 100%. When you work on a task / project which is not 100% within your control, do anticipate all possible bottlenecks, your suggestions and communicate it upfront / proactively. Do communicate the status on an ongoing basis. Do raise a red flag if you were to see a problem along with your suggestions, not just the problems. Do it proactively so there is still time to react and diffuse.

3) Understand what make him insecure – Do volunteer and take up the task that your Bully manager is not good at and help him manage his insecurity.  If he is not good in doing data analysis, you can volunteer and do it.  Prove that you want to work in the interest of the team. 

4) Be assertive: You need to define your own boundary and when it’s violated, you need be firm and assertive. You need to do it right first and every time. It’s difficult to be assertive if it’s not done in the first time. Being assertive does not mean you bluntly disagree and prove him wrong. Rather, how you do it is much more important. 

5) Get used to tough feedbacks – Bully Mangers don’t sugar coat their feedbacks and they may even criticize.  Accept and assure you are determined to work on them.

6) Ask for feedback: Do ask for feedback proactively and find out what your Bully Boss has got to say on your improvement area. Don’t stop with that, do show improvements on those improvement area.

7) Give feedback – Yes. you’ve read it right. Fix up a time and communicate your feedback in an acceptable manner. For example, if you feel that your boss has reacted to you for something for which you were not directly accountable, you can say that and make him understand in the one-on-one discussion.  If he is busy and you cannot find his time or you think that he is not a person who will listen fully, do send a mail explaining the situation clearly without offending him or proving him wrong.

8) Challenge your Boss:  You don’t do that literally. I mean you need to show more results than what is expected and keep raising your performance level

9) Don’t bad mouth – As a rule of thumb, never bad mouth your boss to others.  It spreads much faster than wild fire and you will be bound to feel the heat.  More than anything, it’s a not an ethical habit. You can very well confront and earn a bad name rather than bad-mouthing. Any relationship is built on trust and credibility and anything that you do should contribute to building it and it should not erode the trust deposit that you’ve made.

10) Two Rules:

Firs rule - Boss is always right

Second Rule - Never violate the first rule

Looks like it has a negative connotation.  As long as you are not changing your personality and you are not doing anything unethical, I think it’s fine. Rather, you are tweaking your strategy and learn to be street smart. You are not giving up. You don’t prove him wrong. Rather you prove yourself right. It’s a win-win situation.

Remember, you learn to survive and perform in a tough environment. Quitting is the easiest choice. Staying back needs lots of confidence and determination. 

Warning – This is not a statutory warning. I’ve seen the above strategies working. However, all of them do not have to work for all and in all situations. You are best judge to decide what best suits you and the situation that you face.

All the best and d0 share your experience in terms how well you managed your Bully Boss/es.  What really worked and what back-fired? 

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