Creative retention strategies that can be used by organizations today

This is context to the need of a system in place in today’s corporate world to hold back the potential carrying, & talented employees. Although I’m neither a market researcher, nor a person involved in human resources specialization of management, but having worked with an organization in past for two years, I wish to express few ideas that can be put to use in almost all the organizations. The ideas would help an organization to retain its employee’s pool, gain trust and a feeling of belongingness with the company not as a business firm but as an institute that musters growth.

I would begin by a famous quote, “Always love your work, never love your company, for you may never know when company stops loving you!!!”

Here are few methods I have enumerated to highlight about creative retention strategies that can be used by organizations of today:-

·         The greatest motivation for an employee to continue working with an organization doesn’t lie in perks given in form of petty gifts time & on, but in form of regular rewards & recognitions, the three R’s (Regularity in recognition, Recognition, and rewarding the recognition). Yes, that’s the key word. An employee would only feel encouraged if he/she is rewarded at business unit/organizational level for the task/project he’s been involved into. This remuneration can come in form of timely certifications symbolic to applause offered depending on the complexity & priority of the task at hand. The varying degree of work would determine the kind of certificate issued, vis-à-vis something catering to organizational level, or BU level or team level. And to compliment these certificates, the best option for any company would be to distribute rewards in form of gift vouchers, movie tickets, club swimming passes etc with them. These petty vouchers would add to the cost to the company, but the level of productivity increase and goals clearance would surpass all costs incurred.

·         Next big factor that keeps an employee glued to a company is the desire to grow, not just financially but also holistically, both at work and personal life. The three areas of concern can be looked into by different strategies that need to be devised and implemented timely with full effectiveness:- 

• Financially: - This would be the most important growth factor for an employee esp. for the ones who are at the starting levels. An efficient bonus tracking system needs to be taken into consideration, which could be made online to the extent that an employee keeps feeding in his/her work/tasks completed (with code assigned to each task) and manager’s approval (again online) in the system, so that all those feedback can be taken into account while deciding the bonus for an employee at the end of the period. This would give the organization an advantage to introduce transparency in the system, make the whole process of project completion more efficient and productive and encourage greater employee participation. On one hand where coming up with such a system would incur some costs, the benefits reaped out of it for long term would supersede all the costs automatically. This would also allow variable bonuses to be offered to employees for doing different levels of work, rather than judging two employees with different levels of work on the same scale.
• Work growth: - This would include provision of latest trainings required, both offline and online to all the employees of the company at all the levels. External vendors/ trainers need to be called in on regular basis and training sessions conducted. Also, to encourage employees to go and attend trainings externally arranged by the company after incurring heavy costs, a company can offer petty certifications (not much cost constraint for a company) to all the trained employees. But this would mean, an employee needs to pass the necessary tests at the end of the training (to get that significant certificate), and make self available for any work required outside the peripherals of his/her team. This would allow effective utilization of trained resources across teams and hence across spectrum.  This may also ask an employee to devote self as an effective collaborator for other teams working in the same organizations on different platforms.
• Personal growth: - This would include making the work friendlier for an employee by giving him/her the right to have flexibility at work. /this may not include a flexibility in time, but yes, a flexibility to report at work when desired by an employee on basis of an authenticate reason. This factor would help an employee of not deducting his/her approved leaves, and would be most effective if immediate senior/superior is well informed beforehand.

·         Moving ahead, the next big factor for winning the hearts of employees for an employer is to have regular team-outings in form of lunch, dinners, gaming sessions, birthday celebrations etc. This would generate greater camaraderie among all employees and higher levels of interaction would help in siphoning off all the everlasting hiccups that exists between two colleagues or between a subordinate & his/her boss. Regular conversations would keep the employees abreast of the prevailing market situations and hence provide them an informal platform to discuss all the issues they face on day to day basis. All views are personal...

Voting - A compulsory act????

Apropos to the news published in respected newspapers about Narendra Modi’s statement of making voting compulsory across the country, I would like to propose a better alternative than coming up with a humungous task of making a billion and rising population accountable (also who would keep a check on fulfillment criteria?).

It would be wise for Indian government to come up with a website (portal) which could carry the whole process of casting your vote during respective state & assembly elections. To increase the voting numbers, the portal would work in coherence with the manual way (ballot process) of casting votes. Only modification that needs to be introduced is generation of a unique number series on all voter Identity cards issued by the authorities. All poor households and rural people who are not exposed to operate a system or doesn’t have an access to one would continue voting the way they have been doing till today and all the savvy and literate people with an easy access to internet can go and cast a vote online. This step would ask for a high security website to be in place with few mandatory details that needs to be furnished by every individual for avoidance of double entries/ fake entries.

The benefits of such a system would be manifolds on the other hand, which will include:-

1)A greater transparency in entire process of voting.

2)A greater response from Indian population who otherwise avoid casting a vote owing to troubles involved.

3)The on set of an era which would entrust government with the responsibility of promoting education and expose people to computers in coming times.

4)Huge savings on expenditure incurred during the whole process of voting/ huge savings on exchequers’ money spent during the same period.

5)Using this online database created as a result of registration of citizens for conducting periodic surveys/census/assessments by government agencies. 

6)Making possible the conception of the provision of Social Security Numbers (SSN) which is prevalent in countries like US and is the need of time for a country like ours.

 

Aahat

Aahat kissi ke kadmon ki, ek umeed ki kiran jagaya karti hai,

Durr koi awaaz sunne par, ghungroo ki khan-khan sunai padti hai!!!

Mann daudta hai har chehre ke peeche, kissi kii talaash mein,

Karodon ki bheed hai wahan, fir bhi kissi ki kami khalti rehti hai!!!

Band khidkiyon ke us par, kissi ko paane ka mann karta hai,

Khulte darwazon ko dekh, soti aankhen jaag jaya karti hain,

Aahat kissi ke kadmon ki, ek umeed ki kiran jagaya karti hai!!!

Aate jate is zindagi ke safar mein, har gadi kissi ki lagti hai,

Saath aaj chutta hai hamara,

Lekin kadmon ki aahat wohi manzil ki taraf ishara karti hai,

Aahat kissi ke kadmon ki, ek umeed ki kiran jagaya karti hai!!!

Kissi ke bulane par, har awaaz ussi ki lagti hai,

num khamoshi mein har ehsaas, kissi ki sansein sulgaya karta hai,

dil aaj bhi hai kissi ke paas,

sirf dhadkan idhar sun jaya karti hai,

Aahat kissi ke kadmon ki, ek umeed ki kiran jagaya karti hai!!!

Cricket – a new Avtaar

Cricket - A gentleman’s game has seen many avtaars in recent past. From an ever-lasting & most exhilarating beginning of One Day Internationals & Tests to avant-garde Hong-kong sixes and Twenty-twenty matches in Premier League & Cricket leagues. The game is in all forms of evolution and is slowly working as a great business proposition, or to be rightly stated as young tycoons’ game instead of gentleman’s game or the gentlemen’s game played on business lines, the metaphors can go on endlessly. If it did not matter till today about the number of spectators vying for cricket in all forms and at all places, and the amount of mullah it carried over years, for the Olympics, it certainly would matter in coming times owing to its ever-evolving Avtaars. Till recent past, it has been argued for inclusion of games like Football, Cricket etc. in Olympics which are played widely in entire world and watched over by zillions of people. Even if the proposition arises, how do Olympics authorities take cricket into consideration? Simply, by its new Business Avtaar, where this game can become an individual’s take to prove his mettle in coliseum of sports arena. This would be a format where eleven diverse individuals, that is, from different cricket playing countries would play a match for the same time duration as duration of an ODI. This would make every individual to fight for self, or more apt description would be to fight for his country. The game would involve 55 over’s match (nearly longer than 20-20 format) with each player given 5 over’s to play for. No runners involved, but every man for himself. The format would be scoring maximum points at the end of the match by scoring maximum runs out of eleven players, best fielding, taking maximum wickets, and maximum number of catches & finally for being the wicket keeper on relative grading scale(higher points for being the only wicket keeper in a match). Rest 10 players would field & bowl and the only objective would be to get each batsman out as soon as possible. As soon as one is out, one of the fielders (in predefined order before commencement as per past relative performances) would grab the armor to score maximum and exiting batsman would take the covers of the field. The wicket-keeper would be the last person to bat, but would already have few points to start with for being the only keeper in the match. The burden on cricket community would decrease all the more by having just one umpire, the 3^rd umpire watching every movement from the control room. As every player, fights for his cause, it would be a game of just & fair play with no wrong signage’s to be seen. Taking maximum wickets and scoring runs would be the biggest determining factors for overall points tally. Diverse companies, sponsors from all across the participating nations can chip in for sponsorships and tournament holdings. This would generate more revenue both for the players, companies, cricket world, with gargantuan increase in viewership and a better reach to the sport for non-cricket playing nations. It would come handy as a tournament where a number of matches are played with all players (an exhaustive list) playing league & subsequent matches as per their ranking (similar to Lawn-tennis tournaments like US Open etc) and then proceeding to tougher and testing levels.

There is exponential money riding on game of cricket, yet untapped, and unfazed. The money involved in this sport would one day incorporate this game into Olympics for sure, but can that day be the one when cricket would enter this sporting arena on basis of its viewership, demand & a platform to search the best athletes in the world?? Any prospective takers?

A Paradigm shift in thinking

Apropos to the latest incidents happening in India ranging from bomb blasts that started in Jaipur, & moved on to Bangalore, Ahmadabad and then to Delhi; to the communal rights creating an inferno in states like Orissa owing to death of Swami Laxmananda; from Raj Thackeray party playing a mockery of Indian's glorified freedom given to every individual, to non-happening of Nano project in Singur; from huge unrest amongst the farmers in land compensation in north, to havoc of conversions & re-conversions in Karnataka, Kerala; Is India on the verge of an internal blow-up? Answer: No, not really. This is the time for India and people to consolidate as a unit to combat all levels of evilness in the society. As our agencies like Intelligence Bureau etc. gear up to fight against the terrorism and its uncanny plans, rather then calling it an hour of the need, we as responsible citizens should delve into greater cooperation and brotherhood amongst each other and fight for a much larger cause like eradicating poverty, pollution, global warming, corruption etc. than fighting amongst ourselves those so called communal or holy or islamist or naxal wars. Many of us would call this option as a futile and fruitless drive, but realize the fact; it is still the next best thing to think of as no other means do work out in long run. Joining a militant group, killing innocents, causing disturbance sounds exciting but do they ignite the passion within you to fight for the cause? Ask yourself, answer lies within your soul. As Dan Brown, author of Angels & Demons quotes in his book, the most universal language in world is not the language of religion or science, but of numbers, logic & rationale, that is the language of mathematics. We must understand that Adam & Eve belonged to no religion, Jesus never taught to fight for the hatred amongst each others, and there was no bifurcation on basis of religion in one of the greatest epics ever, Mahabharata. Rather than condemning an individual (Shivraj Patil) for no timely action to uproot terrorism, it is time for us to castigate ourselves for the same. Think of it as an unfortunate person in those streets of Gaffar Market, Karol Bagh just before the blow-ups, wouldn't you ever want to save everyone out there if you knew that something terrible was about to happen? Would you really look into menial details of knowing the religion and ethnicity of an individual first before extending hand in times of grief & pain? Would you be able to judge the difference in blood and skin splattered & splintered around on seeing all brothers & sisters lying dead on the road? The answer is a clear no. Then what are we fighting for if not fighting for helping each other? We must learn that the outfits, militants only become strong when they are highly motivated to fight for their defined cause as they lack the experience of witnessing the world as they would want to see it in their vision & existence, but we have experienced for ages in different generations the world we always wanted to live in, so we don't even need an external motivation, as they do. We don't need to become radical to fight for a noble cause, but to fight!!! The whole concept lies in bringing harmony, peace and love for each other out there. 

The movie Matrix clearly explains the power of 'One', the mighty powers of Neo to fight against the programs of virtual world deceiving humans of their energy; philosophically & realistically speaking, this world is a Matrix, we need to unite as One to break its code. It is high time; the media agencies become highly proactive in spreading the word of brotherhood, camaraderie and love as a message to fight for a cause of long run on daily basis. The parties like BJP takes stricter actions to refrain their prodigies(Bajrang Dal) from rather fighting for petty things at hand to contest for elections, it should be glorifying people at time when they are not in power. Raj Thackeray who can act like a representative & responsible ambassador for entire state should set an example rather then carping on personalities like Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan who belong to no state or territory but to one state of film industry brethren. One need to realize that progress made by few people who have won accolades for the country need not unnecessarily be hampered as they are the ones who generate employment for a millions out there & give realistic-unrealistic heroic hopes to trillions out there in their own direct-indirect ways to fight for a greater cause and to fight within. Police should shun the lackadaisical image it has always carried amongst masses and proper campaigns & awareness needs to be imbibed in every facet of society. Thus we would have a safe place to live in for future.