Role of Human Resource (HR)

The role of HR is very important for any organization and its employees, especially in recent time when the economy is not so stable. HR department not only hires the eligible employees for its company but acts as a motivator, inter-mediator and informer for its existing employee force.

Now a days, words like “lay off” and “salary cut” are creating a stress full environment among the employees in any organization. To resolve and clarify all these tensions, HR professionals should be there. There is an unstable atmosphere in all companies, in recent times, which had put a question mark on the survival of each and every employee. Experts always said that companies should disclose the financial and internal matters with their employees, as far as they can. This will help the employees not to worry. And it would also finish the words like “lay off” and “salary cut” before even they started roaming in the office corridors.

HR department is playing a major role in company strategies making process. Employees are the biggest assets of any organization and to be a safe-guard for them, HR must play a major role. Like HCL Technologies punch line says “Employee First”. In current market scenario, there are two major tasks for any HR department. First, to keep motivated the employees and second, to retain the excellent talents in the organization. These two are also the biggest challenges for HR. Keeping these challenges in mind, companies are improving their internal communication system. Improving the internal communication system is one of the major agendas of HR department. HR is giving importance to communication at each and every level. HR plays a role of mediator in this communication thread.

This role of HR is also important because the same communication channel is being used by most of the employees to know the internal happenings of the company. Many companies ask for employees help in crisis situation. Getting the suggestions is also HR’s task. This process promotes the open discussions.

I have seen in one of my past company that HR was not even concern about what the employees are talking about the company and its policies. In fact some of the employees are not even aware of who was their HR person. I have seen that HR roaming in and around the senior management without any reason and interacting with the employees rarely. That is why I termed that HR as “SHR – Sleeping HR”.

One of the companies in recent times mailed to each and every employee about the cost cutting measures and asks for the suggestions to improve the same. This is a good initiative by HR to start the task and it will definitely end the tasks on a good node.

-- Sanat Sharma

Switch the job when .....

Before you switch your current job, you must be aware that whether you are really not feeling well in the current job or you are switching the job for some few profits and returns. It’s a fact that to move forward in your professional carrier, it is necessary to review your job periodically. But sometimes changing the job in a frequent time frame adds a negative aspect in your CV. That is why; one should switch the job when it is required at any cost.

Following are some of the issues that drive a person to switch the job. It is as per my professional experience. And I am not covering a major factor of job switching in Asia – Salary.

1. Tension full office environment – If you are a part of never ending tension in your office, you could be a victim of headache or backache. An environment like this will redirect a person to sleepless nights heading towards a stressful day where one cannot perform well.

2. Target, far away – Are you on that place where you want to reach at that particular time? If your answer is “no”, I recommend you to start searching the job. If you think that your work in not recognized by the management and you are not getting any appreciations for your work, better to change the job. If you think that you are more eligible than your current role, switch the job immediately. I switch my last job due to this only

3. Dream job in your hand – Everyone has a dream of “Dream job”. If you got the same, without wasting your time, join it. But better to explore the different options of your “Dream job” else it could be your “Wild Dream job” also.

4. Boredom in office – Are you feeling boredom in your office? You are not feeling so excited about your work as you are before. If you are suffering the same from a long time, you need a change in your carrier.

-- Sanat Sharma

What does senior management think about the testing group?

Answering the title question, I recollect all my memories and list down the views that I have heard from ZAT management - Zero Aware Testing management. I already covered on one of my blog about ZAT management in the past.

· Bottleneck
· What is the point?
· Necessary evil
· Ad hoc
· Why so much time?
· Wastages of time
· No value addition in the product
· Too slow
· Overstaffed
· Too many excuses
· Testing should find everything
· Quality gatekeeper
· Find bugs too late
· Testing less value than other disciplines

In my professional experience of around 9 years till date, I understood that the senior management (ZAT management) doesn’t understand what to expect from the testing effort.

I worked in an organization in the past where many users and senior managers expect the testers to find all of the bugs. This is probably not possible and surely is not practical. If too many bugs are ultimately making their way in to production, then one way to reduce the number might be through additional testing and subsequent correction. But, a better solution might be through better understanding the user’s needs, creating better requirements, or producing better code from the onset.

I got a line from one of a senior manager in an organization saying that testing people have nothing to do except to find out the mistakes of the coders. And believe me, that manager has a work experience of 15 years in the IT industry. GOD, SAVE THE IT INDUSTRY OR AT LEAST SAVE THE TESTING. One of a great coder, with whom I worked, said that it is all because of the coders that the testers are getting the job. It means that the coders are 100% sure that whatever they will code, it will be a buggy product.

One of a manager in an organization was always raising the concerns about the testing cycle estimation provided by me for any component testing. He always bargains me with the effort days. We bargain the same like two fools and come up with a solution. The solution was simple. Just reduce the testing cycle effort to 50%. And later, that manager was giving the testing cycle effort estimation by his own, without even discussing with the testing team. WHAT AN IDEA ......

Testing is not the quality gatekeeper. The purpose of testing is not to ensure the quality of the software, but rather to measure its quality. It is true, that the testers may find bugs that, if fixed, will ultimately result in a better product, but this is due not only to the testers but also to the programmers who fix the bugs found by the testers. Testing is just one facet of the quality solution. Responsibility for the quality of the product must reside in the entire team: users, requirements analysts, developers, and, yes, the testers.

-- Sanat Sharma

Imperfections in a perfect job

One job can give you more than what is required to you. But it is also possible that you are not satisfied with it. So let’s explore the reasons of imperfections in a perfect job.

After exploring and interviewing many organizations, you finally got a dream job, as per your requirements. The organization, that had given you offer letter, has everything like
1. Great work profile.
2. Good working hours.
3. Flexible policies with respect to employees.
4. You have offered an interesting designation.
5. The organization has good brand value.

Seeing the above points, it is near to impossible that you resist yourself not to join the organization. But sometimes there is some confusion which creates a grey area in your mind.

If salary is not good: A very common problem in Asian professionals. An organization had offered you the job which looks like a perfect job to you. But you are not convinced with the salary that you have been offered. You are thinking that HR has won the game of negotiating the salary with you. If this is running on back of your mind, you should compare the given offer with the market conditions and salary structure. You should check whether the salary offered is right as per the market standards. Also keep your professional skills and expertise in your mind before getting into the conclusion that you are not getting paid as per your expectations.

In my opinion, one should spend the initial years of his/her job with branded company and good people. Try to learn as many things as you can. If you become expert in your job, the salary increment will hit your bank account at any cost and that too, on regular basis. I have also done the same.

Home-Office distance: If you have to travel a lot between office-home, don’t think that it is a big problem. Sometimes, it happens that your last office was 10 minutes far from your home and the new one, that you are planning to join, is 2 hrs drives away. So don’t get confused. Ask for the cab facility in the organization. Most of the companies are providing the cab facility.

Even I also consider the Home-Office distance a lot in the past. I usually prefer less travel time between Home-Office. And till date, I am fortunate to get the same.

When the company is a start-up: It might happen that your current job is with a branded organization having the good face value and the offered job is from a start-up organization. It is quite obvious that working in a new start-up company will be a challenging job. So my recommendation is to decide the same as per your personality. If you believe in taking risks, join the new offer at any cost.

I also joined a start-up company after my first switch in professional carrier. But I was sure that the start-up, that I am going to join, will be the market leader in near future. And it happened. I believed in the management of that organization and it paid me a lot. I got the exposure and learning experiences and it added a lot of value in my life.

Many job offers at a time: It is possible that you have applied in many organizations and you got selected in many of them. In this scenario, better to explore the relevant factors of all the organizations before joining any one. In my opinion, organization’s brand value and work culture plays a major role in selecting the organization.

This happened with me once in my life. I have been interviewed by around 10 companies in a time span of 20 days. I got the offer letter from 3 organizations within 2 days and I was in a confused state about what to do. But, as per my habit, I considered the near to home organization. But the plus point with that organization was that it was the biggest telecom company of USA. I joined it finally.

-- Sanat Sharma

(सनत शर्मा)

Late sitting in office – Is it worth?

Now days, there is a new trend in the market. Staying late in the office i.e. employees remain in the office after duty hours. But is it worth? Most of the time, it is not. A recent survey done by an US marketing agency gives a picture that 80% of employees staying late in the office are doing nothing after office hours. In other words, they can complete their activities on time, if they have the ability of better time management.

Its 6:00 PM। You started leaving for the day. You packed the bag and just starting for the same. In the meantime, you saw one of your colleagues sitting comfortably in the chair. He is not in a mood to go home. And on top of it, you know that he had no work at all. He is doing nothing but only time pass. These kind of professionals termed as “Late seaters”.

I have seen in some organizations that people starts playing games (Badminton, Table Tennis etc) after office hours। And finally they have the total working hours of 70 in a week. In fact once one of my colleague managers shared with me that one of his employee is actually sitting in the seat for 20 hours maximum but his report says that he is in the office for 80 hours a week.

Recently, Infosys chairman, Narayan Murthy said in a conference about late seating. He said that those professionals who have the habit of staying late in the office are wasting the resources of the office. And above all, they are wasting their time also. Actually these guys are not more productive. He also said that there are some professionals who have more work and that is the reason they are staying late in the office. That is why; people are mostly confused between sitting late and working late.

Each organization wants more productive and eligible resources for themselves। The only criteria of measuring the eligibility of an employee are based on work done on time. That is why if an employee is staying late in the office, it is not a good performance at all. The main fact is that whether an employee is staying late in the office because of time pass or work pressure, it depends on the employee itself. On the other hand, if an employee is habitual of sitting late in the office, he/she will not be able to spend the time with the family that redirects him/her to tension and family disputes.

Is it really necessary to stay late? If late sitting employees are doing great in the office, then the reason for that can be understood। But this is not true in most of the cases. It has been seen that most of the employees stay late in the office to impress the employee. Actually, this all depends on the behaviour of the employee. One cannot measure the performance of an employee based on the late sitting habit. It has been seen that few employees have more responsibilities over them, and that is the primary reason of staying late in the office for them.

In my opinion, staying late in the office is not a good culture of any organization। Employees are like back bone of any organization. Late sitting affects the performance of any employee and creates a gap between the team members. So one should not promote the late sitting culture in the organization.

-- Sanat Sharma