HR Solutions’ Friday Funnies:  Bringing you the lighter side of HR……

Man fakes mother’s death just to get a day’s leave.

A US man has taken telling a white lie for a day off several steps too far.

Scott Bennett, from Brookville, Pennsylvania went to extraordinary lengths to get a paid day off work, and placed a death notice in the local paper for his mother – who was in fact alive and well.

Bennett now faces criminal charges of disorderly conduct after he placed the fake notice in the Jeffersonian Democrat newspaper.

The 45-year-old allegedly wrote the submission in an effort to get paid bereavement leave and to corroborate why he would need additional time off work, local media reported.

Bennett’s plan came undone however, when concerned relatives called his mother, and promptly rang the newspaper to alert them of the ‘mistake’, before his mother actually went into the newspaper’s office to provide living ‘proof’.

The newspaper’s editor, Randy Bartley, said he ran the notice “in good faith” despite being unable to verify funeral details as is normal practice.

EFC HR Solutions Interview: Malthi Das, President of LAWASIA on Supporting Women at Work

Malthi Das is the President of LAWASIA the international organization of which focuses on the interests and concerns of the legal profession in the Asia Pacific Region. In this interview for HRTV, Malthi, who is also a partner for law firm Joyce A Tan and Partners in Singapore, shares her perspectives on the corporate glass ceiling and how women can overcome challenges in the workplace.

Interviewer: Is there a corporate glass ceiling and what challenges do women face when trying to reach the top?

Malthi: I think first of all this whole issue of the glass ceiling is usually talked about in the sense of salaries and in terms of positions, but my perspective on the glass ceiling is that there are two aspects to it: One is the internal sense of how far can I [as a women] go? Can I reach for the stars? This is something that I think not many people talk about. They tend to look at the other aspect, the statistics. They tend to compare the salaries of a woman and a man when they have reached a particular position. I think there is a lot of data that will show that there is a glass ceiling to that extent.

I think what is more interesting is what causes the glass ceiling. Is it purely the market or the industry that has a feeling that we cannot reward women for the same work in the same way because they are trying to build in certain safeguards in the event that a women is not going to be a good return on investment for their employer. By that I mean the time that an employer is going to invest into a woman’s career.  I have heard this said many times. Between a man and a woman, who has more staying power? What are the considerations that the woman will prioritise over when it comes to travel or the ability to work longer hours, or do unconventional projects etc. etc.

Also within the internal aspect is something that I have been very interested in that has been referred to as the Imposter Syndrome.  This is the sense amongst women that we are never good enough. That the reason why we are in a certain position is because it was luck, it was opportunity….. you happened to be in the right place at the right time, and therefore not give yourself credit for the accomplishment that you have achieved.  This I think is a much more serious issue.

If we are start to give the message to young women that they are never going to be able to get to a certain level or that they can only go so far in a certain job role and that if they take time off to have a family it is going to affect their career, then these are some of the things that make women have self-doubt and that is a perpetual cycle that can go on and on.

3 Types of People to Hire Immediately to make Your Business an Industry Leader.

In last time’s memo I talked about 3 character types that companies should steer clear of if they wanted to be successful.

As promised in today’s memo we will look at 3 characters types who are an absolute must for an organization that wishes to lead the way in their industry, according to Mike Maddock, CEO of the international business development consultancy firm Maddock Douglas.  Together with the company’s president Raphael Louis Viton, Mike has observed that nearly all the successful companies he consults for have these three types of people in their workforce:

1. The Challenging Coach or Mentor

Nearly every successful person can name someone in their career who saw their potential and pushed them beyond their own limits.  A good coach will force you to take chances that you may not necessarily take on your own.

Coaches within a team realize that small failures and set backs are really opportunities to grow and learn and they encourage a team to push forward even when the odds are stacked against them.

A challenging coach will know where to position individuals in a team to capitalize on the strengths of each person for the benefit of the whole group.  However they will also not be afraid to tell someone if they are not the right person for that role.

Companies who have leaders with great coaching skills tend to have a high staff turnover. This is because individuals gain confidence under a good coach and get used to challenging themselves with higher goals and aspirations. You may think this is not good news for a company intent on developing its workforce, but it’s just the opposite.   A good coach knows that by developing talent that benefits not just their own company, but the industry as a whole, they create an industry wide network of contacts and high-flyers that they never lose contact with. That’s surely a win for the individual, the business and the industry.

If you need good coaches in your company, look for individuals who have had coaches and mentors themselves. These people understand firsthand the importance of developing staff and will happily pass on experience, coaching techniques and trade tips that are more valuable than any university degree, management course or MBA.

HR Solutions’ Friday Funnies:  Bringing you the lighter side of HR……

I’ve been the Head Cheese for six years...

Do you hand out business cards that say your actual job title? How old fashioned you are! Today’s movers and shakers prefer to give their employees the freedom to choose their own imaginative titles.

One of the biggest printers of business cards in the US, moo.com, said young and trendy companies are moving away from traditional ‘name-company-and-job-title’ cards that fit the typical HR matrix. Instead of ‘Managing Director’, for example, “Head Cheese” might be the title on the business card. How about “Sales Ninja” for a leading sales rep, or “Web Kahuna” for your SEO guru?

According to moo.com, firms and employees increasingly want to stand out from the pack and believe these new titles are fun and shake up traditional expectations of a business card.

‘Senior Executive’ may make up the bulk of your corporate flow chart, but business card specialists are seeing  this job title replaced by “gurus”, “masters” and even “captains”.

‘IT support officer’ is not as exciting as ‘Problem Wrangler’, and ‘Digital Dynamo’ has a certain something that ‘Digital Adviser’ doesn’t.

Paul Lewis from moo.com said titles such as “executive” or “manager” don't stand out to many people and don't have much meaning. “Why not stand out a bit by giving yourself a job title that sums you up as a person rather than limits you to just one aspect of what you do?” he asked.

Japan fights the Fat by getting workforces to work out!

Two years ago, Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare released a report on the nation’s burgeoning bellies, and as a result the government passed legislation which requires all citizens over the age of 40 to have their waists measured each year. If the measurement exceeds the stipulations, they are considered at risk and referred for counseling and support.

In order to ensure compliance, the Japanese government requires companies to slim down their workers or face higher payments into the national insurance programme. Tokyo-based firm Sunstar which specialises in beauty and health products is just one of many companies to have instituted official programmes to address the battle of the bulge. It now hosts an annual boot camp which includes lectures on diet, exercise and Zen meditation. The company also offers overweight workers free delivery of healthy, traditional Japanese food like soybeans and brown rice.

“Many employees are happy for this information and guidance we offer in our programme,” Naoko Takase, assistant manager of PR at Sunstar, told the US News and World Report. However he added that some employees aren’t happy about being forced to lose weight and want to do it of their own volition.

Taking the government directions a step further, electronics giant NEC requires all of its Japan employees to undergo yearly checks from the time they turn 30, a full decade earlier than the government regulations require. Additionally, all employees must attend lifestyle courses and any employee who shows “poor results” (think beer gut) will receive individual follow-up attention.

EFC HR Solutions Interview:  Barry Cupples on nurturing leadership

Barry Cupples is the Chief Executive Officer of Omnicom Media Groups’ Asia Pacific region. This billion dollar global advertising, marketing and corporate communication group has over 5000 clients in more than 100 countries.  In this interview for HRM television he tells how Omnicom nurture leadership through their development programmes and leadership pipelines.

Interviewer: What competencies are you looking for in leaders for Omnicom Media Group?

Barry: Trying to find the right words that would epitomize the kind of individuals [we are looking for] becomes a bit clichéd.

• We work in a very competitive industry, so obviously winners are important.
• We work in an industry where you need a lot of passion and desire because the hours tend to be fairly long, so your commitment needs to be almost so I’m looking for people that have got passion and commitment.
• I genuinely think we need to find people that are sociable because the service side of the business industry is very sociable. You have to be at ease in all sorts of different company.  I am always on the lookout for people who can be “chameleon-like” and mix with all sorts of people on any level.
• Confidence is also big thing that we look for as one of the tenets within senior managers.
• And, I know it sounds a bit “odd” but we do want nice people because the reality is that the “system” that we are trying to create everywhere across the region and indeed globally, revolves round making sure that’s it’s an inclusive, collegiate, environment.
• Collaboration is at the center of that.  So, it has to be somebody that can keep that wheel spinning – the collegiate collaboration process going, and they will only do that if the think that you are like that. It starts from the head [of the company] downwards.
• And the last thing is someone who doesn’t panic under pressure and can multi task because you have to “spin a lot of plates”, [be responsible for many things at once], in a senior role in a communications company!

Interviewer: How is Omnicom Media Group grooming its potential leaders and how has this helped the organisation?

Barry: We have a number of processes and procedures in place, probably the most important one is called Omnicom University. There are two levels, the first is general training for all staff and then there is the SMT level which is the senior management training where people who are CEO’s or potential CEO’s are sent to Boston to be trained by Harvard professors. The course is our’ s [Omnicom’s] but it’s conducted by Harvard professors in a Harvard learning style, and is almost like a condensed MBA.

HR Solutions’ Friday Funnies:  Bringing you the lighter side of HR……

Stand up for meetings

More companies in the US are banning sit-down meetings, and are instead opting for stand-up affairs that are short and to-the-point.

Stand-up meetings are becoming prevalent as part of a fast-moving tech culture, where sitting is considered slothful. The objective of standing up is to hasten efficiency and reduce the opportunity for workers to play with their phones or tune out.

In a report by the Wall Street Journal, company meetings are held every morning at US software development firm Atomic Object. Attendance is compulsory, no idle chitchat is allowed and most importantly, everyone has to stand up.

Such meetings are meant to maximise productivity with minimum time wastage. “At the end of meetings, which rarely lasts more than five minutes, employees typically do a quick stretch and then “go on with their day,” said Michael Marsiglia, VP of Atomic Object.

The current wave of stand-up meetings owes its popularity to “Agile”, an approach to software development that calls for compressing development projects into short pieces. It also involves daily stand-up meetings where employees do a quick update with each other on what they have done since yesterday’s meeting, what they are doing today and any problems they are facing with their work.

Employees late for meetings may have to sing a nursery rhyme or pay a small fine, said Mike Cohn, president of US firm Mountain Goat Software. If someone is speaking for too long, an employee may hold up a rubber rat, indicating it is time to move on.

One Microsoft group even tosses a rubber chicken into the group for participants to decide who gets to speak next.

HOW TO MOTIVATE HIGH PERFORMERS?

Ms. Deshika Rodrigo, Head of Human Resources, Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) – SL

Tells the EFC’s HR / IR Forum about the SCB’s Experience

The fourth meeting of the EFC HR / IR Forum was held on the 23^rd of Nov 2011 at the EFC Auditorium from 1.45 p.m. to 4.30 p.m. The presenter at the above Forum was Ms. Deshika Rodrigo, Head of Human Resources, Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) – Sri Lanka. She presented on a very interesting and timely topic: ‘Motivating High Performers - The Standard Chartered Bank Experience’

As most of the companies conduct their year-end performance appraisals during the month of December, the topic was a timely one. The EFC Auditorium was packed with leading HR Professionals, Academics and other practitioners. There were 54 participants together with EFC’s Professional Staff. It was also encouraging to note that there were a few non-EFC members who attended the forum.

EFC HR Solutions Interviews:  Alvin Chan on talent development

Alvin Chan is the Asia HR Director of Celestica Inc., the $6.25bn multinational Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS) company.  In this interview for HRM television he shares his views on how to develop a successful talent management programme.

Interviewer: Why is it important to align talent management with strategic business objectives?

Alvin: Leaders are going to be reluctant to participate wholeheartedly if they can’t link the value of what you are doing in talent management to the [business] strategy. So, in order for you to get “buy-in” for any talent management initiative, you’ve got to make sure that leaders fully understand how what you are doing links back fully to the company strategy.

Interviewer: What conversations should HR have with top management to achieve this?

Alvin: HR needs to be having thoughtful and meaningful conversations with the business leaders and I don’t just mean senior management, but all business leaders. It’s got to be 360.  All leaders have got to be talked to and be investing for tomorrow and for today. So, one of the things HR needs to do is to understand the strategy.  You cannot deliver any value if you do not understand where the business is going. So,

• HR needs to engage the business,