Covid19 and new normal

Few years back when the central government amended the company law for CSR spend, there were a lot of NGOs started mushrooming to support corporate & help them to manage the CSR fund. Everybody wanted to support organizations without much having any competencies to manage projects under CSR. Few of the NGOs even didn’t have any knowledge about the spend. On the other side, few suppliers and consultants were trying to relate everything with CSR and approaching companies. I remember when one of the English language training institutes approached me about English speaking courses for villagers and people in rural areas. In another case, Children story book publisher approached me about selling books for kids in the school. These people were not aware about priorities of the societies and companies. There is another set of NGOs who are managed by designer social workers. Unfortunately, this is a social engineering business model. Somebody’s donation is somebody’s business. During the Covid19 situation, today those people on the ground supporting the poor are small foundations or social workers in a true sense. I have not seen any designer NGO working at ground level.

I remember this because of Covid19 situation. The Covid19 situation is the same, where everybody is trying to relate their actions with Covid19 situations. I have seen some products which are proposed to en-cash the moment. I get marketing mails where they are trying to relate everything to Covid19 situation. They are assuming that everything is because of Covid19, from payroll to training and health & wellness. Very few are adding value to our business and knowledge. 

Take an example of digitalization. We have been speaking about the digitilization & the new ways of working for the last few year. We already knew that automation, digitalization, artificial intelligence is part of life. Covid19 has given us the opportunity to test where we stand and how much we are prepared for this. There are companies which have already been working from home for the last few years. Surprisingly, companies which call themselves modern companies (IT) don’t have enough IT hardware to manage this situation. There are a lot of companies where employees are working from home either with their personal desktop or laptops are shared among them. But there are organizations who have all infrastructure ready & they were forced, they started to work from home with few hiccups and now it is well settled. 

But does it mean that in future everybody would like to work from home? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. totally depend upon the personal choice and organizational needs. Human beings are social animals; they have their psychological needs. Employees and organizations need to find ways to keep them engaged. Working from home for a few days is ok but working from home permanently has its own consequences. It is very fancy to say about it, but organizations need to devise futuristic policy how they will ensure engagement, productivity and also have right controls.

There is another fad nowadays and it is about expert comments on the consequences of Covid19. Do we really need to tell us that Covid19 will have a bad impact on the economy? It is common sense. Few years back, when MS office was launched, people were fascinated by making fancy presentations. There is one presentation on the SlideShare which speaks about “Death by PowerPoints''. It was too much. Slowly people got it habituated and matured enough to make sensible presentations for the audiences and they realized that presentations are just to compliment the speaker while presenting something to the audience. In extreme conditions if you face technical issues and your ppt doesn’t work, you should be able to speak without that. Today, it is the similar fad of using apps like Zoom for webinar. I will say that people will die because of webinars. There should be some sensible topics. I fully understand that such webinars are good to keep engaging people. It is also assumed that people don’t have anything to do hence it is a good opportunity to connect. But the problem is relating everybody as a consequence of Covid19. Few topics and of course I am also the culprit of speaking on one or two forums. Initially for a few days, it was OK to have some sessions, but I have seen few people speaking and giving their opinion which is not an expert opinion and doesn’t make any sense. They are not giving any new knowledge about the “how” part.  Covid19 will have a new normal which will be different from normal. That’s it. 

One thing which I like about this situation is that organizations are challenged and without much discussion everybody accepted the change of working from home & new way of working. In a normal situation, there would have been a lot of excuses for not doing it. Another change is mindset change. In a normal situation, it would have been the change management project with a big team and perhaps 1-2 years project. In this situation, it is just fast. What I feel is that this situation is extraordinary, a once in a decade event. We should enjoy this and find out some positives from this but don’t be carried away with what it means. Is it perfect? No. Still employees have a lot of challenges & organizations have to work on this. 

My take about this situation is as under:

Create an urgency & Just do it: During normal situations, we tend to discuss a lot and delay a lot of projects, ideas & decisions just because we are not sure about the same. Most of the time, it is just courage and confidence which lacks. Ideas are discussed, but not implemented because management doesn’t create the sense of urgency. During Covid19, this urgency is created by the situation and of course by the government.      

Digitalization is not because of Covid19. Covid19 just forced you to use this. Organizations can spend more on the infrastructure now.

Work from home is again not because of Covid19, most of the companies have their work from home policy. Companies like yahoo withdrew work from home policy in 2003. However, Covid19 just forced it and challenged organizations. It is a high time to invest into infrastructure to make it effective.

Work from home does not mean work life balance. Few employees tend to work more, and supervisors may take you for granted. Your availability is always expected.  In fact, work from home needs more professionalism and discipline. Organizations need to work on how to manage this.

Work from home is not always productive. Manufacturing companies can’t work from home and neither do their supervisors & managers. Lot of things happen on the shop floor.

Till we get the vaccine to fight the Covid19, we need to work on developing our immune system. We also need to change our habits and need to be more hygienic. Social distancing will be the new norm and naturally this will have the impact on few businesses. Possibly this will also increase the consumption of foods & consumables at home. People may use their own vehicles and it may help the economy to grow in 2021.

(Opinions are purely personal & does not represent my organization)

Please read the print replica of my latest book written for leaders on amazon kindle; Vitality in Human Resource

Myths and facts behind profiles & stories

If you see the profiles of professionals on LinkedIn, you will realise that everybody there is a leader; not only a leader but also a thought leader. Everybody is a good storyteller & philosopher. 5 out of 10 HR professionals have received Top HR leader, HR thought Leader, HR professional of the year, young professional etc etc. awards in their career. CEOs & CXOs are doing great branding on the platform. Few are writing stories regularly; few are sharing their experience, and few are sharing what they like. Most of them are just copying and pasting though. Few of those professionals are helping others and the overall community by sharing such stories. I am sure most of the companies must have their social media experts working for them, specially for companies and top leaders. Individuals are engaging with others on the platform regularly. On the other side, there are companies who have their own pages and they are also positing positive stories about their organizations.

If you believe in both, individual and organizational profiles and stories they put on the platform, it seems that the world is a better place to live now. Every organization is a great place to work, every company has the best practices, every company has got some or other award in management. Seems, all the problems and worries, company management and employees used to have in earlier days are now vanished.

In spite of having all this, still people are changing their jobs, companies are facing some basic challenges of revenue and cost optimisation. It is obvious situation because of Covid19, but in normal situation company stories look like “हम साथ साथ हैं (we are all together)”

Long back traditional media has enjoyed the status of 4^th pillar of democracy, but now everybody is the author, journalist and storyteller. Content is the king. If you have good content and you know how to present that content, you are powerful. However, you should know how you create & present the content.

I am just referring here about the professional contents and professional social media platforms like LinkedIn. The contents can be presented more positively, but the question is how to make it relevant as a user. Based on those profiles, head-hunters, recruiters approach the candidates for opportunities. Talent gets attracted reading stories presented on company pages and the posts senior managers post on the platform. Leads are generated based on the product information presented on the company pages. However, the main question is how to understand the authenticity of such content. How to understand the person who writes thought leader in his/her profile is really a thought leader. Titles are misleading, roles can be judgemental. People are not aware of what's happening on the market. There are recruiters who think that HRBP is a very junior role and CHRO is junior than other roles in HR, because an officer is always junior than a manager in the corporate world. This is strange to know, but this is the reality. There are facts and there are myths shared daily on the platform by users. Everybody is a marketer. The million-dollar question remains what is authentic. The person who is sharing stories about leadership lessons may be the worst leader actually and he may have the blind spot. The organization which is a great place to work may have issues and employees may have other opinions about the same company.

As said by somebody it is very relevant to think, “दिखावे पे मत जाओ अपनी अकल लगाओ (don’t go by face value & use your wisdom)”. Research more & try to understand the person behind the person and company behind the company.  

Please read the print replica of my latest book written for leaders on amazon kindle; Vitality in Human Resource

Leadership Behaviours during Covid19

Excellence in Leadership

You can debate that we need different skills while handling the situation like Covid19. Such situations are extraordinary situations. Such an event happens once in a century. VUCA is one of the words which we always use in management jargon. We always thought that we were living in the VUCA world. If you believe this, then you should be able to handle the Covid19 situation also. Has anybody applied for the course to learn how to manage the situation during Covid19? Perhaps not, but there are a lot of webinars and online sessions conducted by different organizations and forums for professionals. When you listen to all this, you don’t get much new idea how to handle the situation. The wisdom shared is about the consequences, impact etc. However, the wisdom shared about behaviours is still we always speak about. This is the same which we are learning from decades.

One of the problems with such events is people's behaviour. This is called “amygdala hijack”. “Amygdala hijack” is a personal, emotional response that is immediate, overwhelming, and may be out of measure with the actual event because it has triggered a much more emotional threat. In this condition our reasoning, problem-solving and even our ability to “hear” things can be impaired. This creates uncertainty & triggers emotional threat. Further there is a lot of information shared and such information may not necessarily be authentic and true. Fake news spreads like the fire. With social media controlling such news is a bigger issue. This creates further emotional tension and people start behaving weird.    

What are those skills leaders need to have during such times? I personally feel that it is not rocket science. This is a time now to execute and implement what we have learnt over a time. This is a combination of management and leadership. During such periods we need tough leadership where people need to make some tough decisions. It doesn’t mean that you should not consider the human element. During such periods, you don’t need to learn new skills but work on those skills you learned over a period and wait to implement in those.  

Do you think the following skills are new?

• Clarity of thought,
• Courage,
• Analytical skills,
• Strong Networking and influencing skills,
• Communicating difficult messages,
• Empathy,
• Strategic and tactical skills,
• Agility and
• Strong change management skills.

The approach to implement may be different. Only difference is, now it is the time to exhibit behaviours. You have to figure out those behaviours which should be visible. 

Following is the leadership guide which speaks about what you do during normal and abnormal situations. Homework for you is to identify those behaviours and work on that. 

In view of Covid19 situation, it is also a time to reflect that we need to exhibit our leadership qualities (which everybody has) to bring back the business. Please watch the presentation below.

Please read the print replica of my latest book written for leaders on amazon kindle; Vitality in Human Resource

Excellence in leadership from Vinod Bidwaik

What is in "Vitality in Human Resource?"

Buy the kindle copy (Print replica) here

Unpredictable events around the world have impacted business and the way business is done. Automation and digitalization are changing the landscape of the workforce. Managers are expected to be the first HR managers for their team. With such challenges, we also need to redefine our approach towards the human capital in the organization. We need to focus more on “Human” factor. It is also crucial to coach managers on managing Human Resource with right intent. Everybody needs to find the human factor in automated HR processes. After all, human resource function is related to people. It is about understanding “human” into the human resource processes. This book is a compilation of such examples of finding “Human” factor in HR processes. You will get insight about Human in all HR processes, from hiring to separations. Events and stories mentioned here will help you to crystallize your thought process. This book is not only for HR professionals, but also for other Managers and management professionals who are handling teams. As a manager, you will also get some insights about your own development. Some chapters are dedicated to individual learning and as a manager, you can always help your team members to develop in assent perspective. In short, this is a booster dose for improving your Human Resource acumen.

Every article is the story behind HR processes, leadership and management.

You will relate all stories with your experience.

This book is for all managers & business leaders to improve their HR acumen and human quotient