Hiring for Indian E-commerce : often hit by an iceberg

Hiring and Firing @ Indian E-Commerce

Indian e-commerce has boomed in last three years. The growth story of the e-commerce companies have been largely a fairy tale. However, behind the glamor, lies some horror stories which are often pushed under the carpet. Yet, these stories often find their way out- thanks to active media and social media. And one big story every company try to hide is their lay-offs.

Hiring for young e-commerce company is a task much more than it meets the eye. Often, it is mistaken as a job of quick ramp up of numbers and getting the resource in but it leads to bigger problem later on. We have seen lot of examples in last half a decade where the individual companies, who have hired the cream of the talent from premier schools and otherwise, had to ‘right size’ their organization as per business growth, forecast and cost optimization measures- often given a name of strategic initiative. The reasons for this accelerated hiring and firing can be many. I am just trying to highlight a few as per my understanding

Reason 1: Not knowing what they want

The young start-ups are largely started by young people who have enthusiasm and vision but somewhere lack experience. Hence, sometimes they do not know what kind of person will suit them best. They often land up a specialist as they see the person bringing in a deeper knowledge even at a place where they need a generalist. Hence, either one more position needs to be created or the right person needs to replace the old one.  Lack of quality interviewers also contribute to the problem.

Reason 2: Five blind men and elephant

Some profiles are much talked about in an e-commerce parlance. Online-marketing, visualizer, content writer and product management are just name a few. However, if you ask 3-4 people to define their understanding of product management or online marketing, the answers may be very different. Each company views these profiles from their perspective. A person in online marketing of travel portal has different mindset compared to online marketing person working in a premium jewellery segment.

Reason 3: Metamorphosis of environment/organization

Some organizations could not grow as per their anticipation as their funding dried up, their penetration into new market or geography did not yield expected results or some other aggressive player has dented their market share. Some organizations have gone through complete re-vamping of their business model. In such situations, the hiring of past must be undone to cut the flab, excess cost and to get new thought process as per the changed requirements.

Reason 4: Lack of vision

Sometimes hiring is done only to create a big bang on some premier school campuses or to hit the headline- trying to show off their muscles (funding). This kind of hiring often misfire as then the utilization or output is not upto the cost involved which leads to rethinking of decision.

Reason 5: Lack of HR involvement in the beginning.

Sometimes lot of duplicating of profile happens in the organization as different business units hire of similar profiles. In absence of central HR function which talks about internal availability of talent, the duplication of profiles happen. Later, such profiles often form a central team shared across divisions and hence some resources are asked to leave. Training, analytics and marketing are typical examples of such functions.

References

http://profit.ndtv.com/news/careers/article-speed-hiring-catches-fancy-12-minutes-and-hired-or-fired-1207796?pfrom=home-business

http://www.nextbigwhat.com/fabfurnish-layoffs-and-restructuring-297/

http://www.firstpost.com/business/tightening-cash-burn-housing-com-sack-600-staff-just-three-months-2385420.html

http://www.crazyengineers.com/threads/flipkart-layoffs-250-employees-are-out.67984/

Following my HR Dharma

Following my HR Dharma

As HR person, I have always found myself in either of the two most confusing, emotionally taxing and intellectually challenging situations, which has often provoked me to reach out for thoughts and newer solutions but sometimes lot of turmoil. The acceptable unethical and guilt of doing right has always haunted me. I have been hated and not loved by many for doing the right or accepting the wrong- but I have managed to live with it.

One of the situation is accepting the unethical behaviour. In today’s world, where recruitment is competitive, business is aggressive and environment is dynamic, we all get into and accept some unethical practices, sometimes unknowingly but mostly, in our full senses and consciousness. Examples are numerous. Which recruiter has not seen a candidate not turning up on the day of joining or coming back after ten days from receiving the offer, bargaining for a new salary as he/she has a parallel offer now? As HR, we all know that it is unethical. The candidate may bargain again with us or someone else, yet most of the time we budge. Accepting the unwanted. If we do not accept the arm twisting and try to show that we have come out strong and victorious, we are fooling ourselves. Few months down the line if we cross paths with same candidate, we will still try our best to hire him and will not reject him based on his ethics, as demonstrated in the past.

E-commerce is a new world to Indian business environment and almost an alien word to our legal system which refused to go through metamorphosis from acts of 1950s and 60s, thus challenging Mr. Darwin. Hence, every company in this newly evolved space, follow some legal guidelines as per their understanding and often as per their convenience as the lazy legal system fails to combat the exploitation of the system. However, these companies have given new experience to consumers, values to shareholders and fat package to employees, thus increasing the overall social strata. Hence we agree to moulding of legal system as per our need and also include labour inspectors and similar people as our accomplice. And the best is, we have an alibi- “this is what we have understood as per below clause as this is the job we are in to”.

The second extreme is guilt of doing the right. Lot of times we hear, “HR has not given me good hike or promotion”, “HR has been downsizing like crazy”, “HR threw me out one fine day” and many more sweet allegations.

Yes, we do all. But do we do it willingly? Do we enjoy it? I am quite tempted to quote Shylock (Merchant of Venice) here,

“I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die?”

We also do not like to fire an individual or group. We also understand that they do have financial commitments and responsibilities to carry. However, when weighed against the greater good of the organization- either in terms of saving the expense or by disassociating from an employee who has done unethical acts or can be a potential threat to information and security, we are left with no choice. We manage the cost for overall organization, trying to be as fair as possible, treating everyone with same respect as per their output to the organization, only to hear the unpleasant. We execute the unwanted amputation with a fine precision as a surgeon, disconnecting one major nerve of the organization with minimal possible pain, yet we are HR- Hardly Recognized.

Sometimes, we even know who is right between two disputed parties. But like our judiciary, we also need to keep our friendship, judgement and knowing of truth aside, rely only on proofs and take decision which sometimes is fair and sometimes is anything but fair- and we know that.

HR needs to deal with lot of conflicting emotions in their daily work profile. They need to balance their head, keep it levelled.  The conflicts will always be there, but what makes one successful is one’s ability to detach from all feelings and just act. Something similar to what Arjun did at Mahabharata, pegged down Bhishma in not so ethical way and had to and killed his own family members for greater good of society and dharma.

As HR, let us remember our karma (KRA), work for greater good of society (organization), be emotionless to our family members (colleagues and employees) as they are here to come and go, be a medium for change like Arjun was and just follow our HR dharma.

Use of psychometric in Young Organizations

Use of psychometric in Young Organizations

If I look back today, last one decade has taught us a lot of new things- and perhaps one of the big things we have learnt, is how to shop online without ‘touch and feel’. Surely, the last ten years has been an era of start-ups and e-commerce.  An e-commerce organization is a nothing but a new way of doing the old business and the comfort and convenience of the consumer is kept at prime. In such new organizations, most of the times, a young team often comes together and create something dynamic- targeting the old problem but with a brand new approach.  When the initial core team is getting formed, obviously some experience is blended with the exuberance to ensure a smooth sailing. However, not every-one is a tailored fit for a start-up, including the founders. Some can be molded, some cannot. How to get the best fit as well as areas of improvements for people in a start-up, psychometric analysis can be a good tool. Before we get to probable usage of psychometric, let us look at some of the cases. I am sure, we all would have met someone similar people in our professional stint. It is only to highlight that how young organization have different initial members who with the growth of the organization need to develop certain complimenting skills in their team.

Case 1

 Sarvendu was one of the young entrepreneur CEOs.  He has thought of offering buying options online to Indian public which was confined to highly unorganized sector. Sarvendu was surely one of the best brains as far as business acumen and business plans were concerned. He was a friendly CEO and always wanted his employees to have fun at work yet he was a man of few words- very few words. With his online venture in it’s fourth year of existence, his company was almost 350 employees strong. It was also important for him to address media and employees on periodic basis. Addressing media or investors was still easier task for him. Meeting employees in public forum where 400 pairs of eyes are gazing at him and he is fielding their questions or speaking to them was tough part for him. Not that he was afraid of questions but not in the public under hundreds of stare. A pure introvert that ways. However, with people he had a rapport, he used to interact during and outside office as well but they were very few in numbers.

Case 2

Narayan was pretty elder compared to most at a senior level position in a four year old e-commerce company, almost by a decade in terms of experience or may be even more. He was a conventional old world finance person. A CA by profession, he had a background of 18 years in a two big manufacturing set ups before coming in to his current stint. He was not as popular in his direct team and otherwise as other leaders. He was more perceived as threat or autocratic boss among his team members. Others also tried to avoid him and kept the interaction with him to the minimal. He had constant tussle with couple of his young team members. They were young and wanted a young culture in this young organization. However, he was a follower of ten hours in office with half an hour lunch break.   Not too much into employee engagement and fun activities, some of his team members were finding it tough to adapt to his style of working especially when other teams are enjoying a free work environment within the company. He preferred hiring people who could align to his thought process without much of confrontation on any topic. His management style was surely of yesteryears but his finance knowledge was phenomenal.  He knew all the parameters very well where investors could ask questions and he used to ensure full compliance to all basic requirements.

Case 3

Hema was a dynamic lady and was heading the training and development. She was extremely driven by targets and deliverables and was perhaps the best person to get the output. Training is often neglected in most of the organizations but not where she had been in control.   Her planning and execution was near perfect and she has managed praises for implementation of program from all her superiors all through her career. She believed in connecting with people and hence lot of her work used to get done due to personal influence. She actually used to get deeply and emotionally involved with her work, team members and stake holders. However, in order to meet the deadline, she used to push herself, her team members and stakeholders all too hard, more often infringing into the areas she should not. Her passion for work was way too high and she expected even her stakeholders and team to put her job on priority- if not professionally then at least owing to the personal rapport they have, they should. Hence, quite often she used to feel being betrayed or being let down if her task is not valued with the same priority by others. It used to be a personal let down for her with the feeling that she is not getting the due importance by people.  

Case 3

Anurag was a young HR leader. He had an interesting career run. He looked like a safe risk-averse player but he always moved to a younger and naïve organization compared to his previous one. He looked for bigger responsibilities to drive things in organizations where things are not yet set. He looked for places where things are hazy and directionless. He was a policy maker and follower, driven by data, slightly reserved, was approachable but not proactive speaker. His team used to love him as he always focused on their development and cracked jokes with them. He was like a protective bubble for his team members. On the other hand, he was one of the most feared man on the floor. A hard task master and a perfectionist- bordering on being finicky. A dormant volcano who used to be quite dormant till he is pushed to explode and post that, it used to be fire and fury. If a deadline is missed or job not done despite his follow ups, the dormant volcano used to get active.

Case 4

Juhi was a good trainer of behavior and leadership skills. She knew how to drive other vendors when required. Developing the training process, thinking of content and making a flow was like a cake walk for her. She was a risk taker and used to accept open challenges without thinking too much. This attitude sometimes used to land her in troubled waters too. She used to meet her real waterloo when the documentation, process and protocols were to be done. With finance and other teams, obviously she had to ensure all documents reach in a particular format and basic process is followed. This was not something which used to come naturally to her and often were procrastinated till being inevitable.

Case 5

Nigam, was a senior person and a well-known name in field of marketing. He had lot of creative ideas, often tried and tested and if not tested, still a safe bet to give a decent result if not radical. He was friendly when approached. He was quite respected at the young organization he was working for. He brought in a rich fifteen years of experience with some of the most renowned and old business houses. However, due to his age, team was slight reluctant to approach him if the doubt is not very big. He has given decent results to the organization so far. However, with few competitors coming up in last one year or so, he was facing the heat from the management to do something radical to improve the presence among young people. Overall, he was respected as a nice uncle to look up to but not someone who can bring dynamic changes.

Now we have seen few personalities. Some of the traits we witnessed are shy, aggressive and emotional, passive aggressive, aggressive but unorganized, rigid to a change, and risk averse.  Are they all fit for a young organization? Do they all bring in certain proposition to the table for organizations? Do they have big skill gaps as senior professionals that need plugging in? We can have lot of open questions and some of those can be answered through psychometric.

Psychometric may not always be an evaluation method during the hiring. It also need not give a verdict in binary whether someone is fit for the given job or not. However, it shall be a tool for one’s development especially in young organizations. Two common mistakes we may do while making psychometric evaluation for younger organizations are

·         Creative doesn’t mean only artists: We take the mentioned quality for a particular personality type on its face value. For instance, INTP, ESTP or ISTP are creative people. However, we often confuse creative people with professions like writer, musician, painter or someone similar. However, creative people need not be only artists. They can be inventors or for that matter any professional who brings in fresh perspective and out of box solutions to their existing work areas. An HR person can be creative in terms of people practices he brings in or a software developer can be equally creative in terms of what he creates

·         We shall not stereotype a personality type and people: Most of the recommended professions through psychometric evaluations were on the basis of established organizations. For instance, a person with ESTJ profile as per MBTI profiling, is said to be a good CEO as he/ she possesses good supervisory skills. However, not that every ESTJ becomes a CEO or vice-versa. In-fact, most of the modern CEOs are of creative personality type since they have created an out of box solution for long standing problems.

In young organizations, a CEO might not always be an ESTJ or with a high D-I as per DISC profiling. The person may be a more creative person who would have thought of an innovative solution to an existing problem. He is bringing in a passion and innovation. Hence he started something so creative and innovative and had he been just a good supervisor, he would not have created something new.

The psychometric can give feedback on skill-set/competencies of a good leader who needs to manage people and processes simultaneously. Similarly, an individual who is low on ’Compliance’ as per DISC, needs to have someone who can complement him/ her on process adherence. Each individual discussed here, brings in certain characteristic and competencies if they all have to start an organization together. They all had their respective shortfalls. Psychometric tools only help us in understanding that there are certain areas to be plugged in and identification of development areas. Like Sarvendu needed to work on his communication or must have someone close who communicates on his behalf. Juhi, must have a team member to put all documents together and Narayan needed a direct reporting person who can bridge the gap between his old world sincerity and new age work culture.  In short, a strong gut shall be backed by data, an introversion shall be complimented by extroversion, an intuition shall be complemented by sensing and low on compliance shall be accordingly complimented.

Early on in the evolution of an organization, one finds employees with a certain leaning- non-compliant or non-follower looking for innovative breakthroughs. Once the organization stabilizes, it needs people who can steady the ship and navigate through the stormy seas. Then competencies such as compliance, adherence and process orientation need to blend in then for sustenance and continued growth of the organization and psychometrics helps in getting the right fit but only when the ship has gained certain momentum.

 

Neither a Casanova, nor a virgin !

‘Neither a Casanova nor a virgin’, sounds interesting as well as nebulous too. The phrase depicts an uncertainty or indecision or to put it in direct and simple terms, a state of confusion. On a closer look, the caption shows too contrasting characters a person can be in state of i.e. two extremities a pendulum can reach.

Think of a pendulum, still at its position. It won’t move at its own till it gets a push in either of the direction. So is a common. Very much stable in day to day routine life, he is quite reluctant to changes till he gets a push, which may or may not be favorable. Even if has the willingness to change, a cloud of uncertainty, indecision and confusion is there enveloping his thought process. His first step towards any situations is under compulsion. The compulsion can be a strong motivating incentive which is too lucrative to reject or an extreme crisis where he has no other option than to change his guard and in absence of any of these, he often settles down for the vanilla; mediocrity !!

This explanation can not be generalized to all but definitely to the majority who incidentally are called mediocre or middle class people in common parlance. These people are marked by their characteristic of leaving a lot to the fate. But who fall under this typical class?? The persons, who fulfill any of the following criteria, are part of the segment I am talking about.

1. The person is having mediocre academic records.
2. The person is ‘Jack of all trades but master of none’, apart from academics.
3. The person is bourgeoisie.

These criteria are very important to understand as they will be referred time to time again. Ideally the most suitable example for such kind of person would be the one who satisfies the entire three criterions. He is the person who has to face the most ‘adversities’ in his life. He has brains, but not enough. He has resources but partially inadequate and is talented but not attention grabbing. So whenever the person asses himself, he finds himself better than most of the persons around but still he is no where near the top, be it any field. The glory eludes him, may be by a whisker but there is the slip between cup and the lip. The person here is compelled to lead a life of late 20^th century despite being well into the new millennium. His limited resources force him to have a limited exposure, outlook and use of modern technology and in turn a limited mindset. He arrives at all the milestones in life but may be a fraction later than he could.

At this juncture, two questions provoke my mediocre brain. First, how such unfavorable grounds for a person is created and secondly, are the people of the class we are talking about are the unsuccessful in life? To answer the questions, we can take the person fulfilling all the three situations. The possibility of having combination of any two ‘qualities’  is also there but for our simplicity, we’ll take persons who fulfill one of the parameters only and see how complex things can get in life.

Taking the first question, first that how such situation arises? In language of a demagogue politician, the answer would be that the rich people have always capitalized on poor masses’ limitations. The gap has widened through the years and we need to change the social imbalance. In my view I rule out any such phenomenon especially in third world where everyone is to be held responsible for his own condition. The world today is more of a selfish world and if anyone has failed to recognize and exploit the opportunity, no one else can be blamed. I must remind that by saying selfish here, I do not mean unethical. Someone perhaps was frank or may be shameless and knocked on the door of the ‘do not disturb’ opportunity at the right time. He has gained advantage over others sitting and waiting for some kind of miracle to happen before they knock at their door. ‘Nirlajjam sadaa sukhi’ !!

Coming back to the circumference within which a mediocre life is so called compelled to live. There are many reasons creating such restrictions. First is financial background. A not so sound financial background force a person to compromise on education, technology and knowledge despite being aware of the latest developments around. It will be a mistake to adjudge that person as a poor person. In fact the person is having his resources but limited and some major priorities. His limited funds make all his desires take a back seat. He allowing the situation to take over, most of the times helplessly watches what is happening around in the world.

Now let us look at the second question which is still staring us that are mediocre people successful in life? Then let us find out what does the term ‘being successful’ means? If getting bread and butter twice a day and 365 days a year is meant by being successful, then even a menial dog is enjoying success (no offence to pugs!).

It is very difficult to define ‘success’ in clear and concrete terms as it will differ from person to person. I personally feel that despite having our own definition of success, there is one common chord on which we all will have sync. Is the person achieving his set goals and desired social status? Sounds logical to an extent but only when a clause is attached. The set goals must be socially acceptable and higher than the prevailing status of the person. As success is a relative term, until the change is relatively positive, it can not be termed success.

Now when we have defined our way of measuring ‘success’, it is time to get back to the discussion that whether the person meeting all the conditions of a mediocrity is worse off than the person who is meeting only one of such conditions? The following example will clarify our thoughts and will give new insights to our discussion.

There were three friends, let us say Mr. A, Mr. B and Mr. C. Amazingly all of them were mediocre of one kind or the other.  Mr. A was academically barely competent, enough only to avoid any unwanted grades. Mr. B was a jack of all trades while Mr. C had a lower middle class background.

The trio had some amazing qualities to complement. Mr. A, son of a well off businessman, was a good sportsman. Once he managed to clear his school, he joined a training camp and with a personal gymnasium at home, he soon became a national level player. As he had no reasons to worry for his bread, butter and shelter, he devoted his time to his sports. With passage of time he turned professional and earned quite a name for himself. Soon he found few sponsors ready to bestow a fortune on him and he gladly accepted the offer. Now he had more than a name in society.

His friend Mr. B as I said was jack of all trades but a very good student. His academics were simply outstanding and even his fallen grades used to be an ‘A’. Though he didn’t have anything else to boost, his academic records were recognized everywhere. His father, a respectable man in society could afford a part of his education only but with help of scholarships and continuous merit record, he moved ahead and landed up being a scientist. His contributions to field of science were well recognized.

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The third of the three musketeers Mr. C was a good student and a very good painter. He unfortunately didn’t have a decent family financial backup. So once he was through with the school he had a very tough time arranging his funds for higher studies. He then decided to sell of his paintings made during his free times. Though the situation he faced was not as simple as the description, he somehow managed to graduate and get a decent job. His exceptional talent still seconds his financial stature but more importantly he is widely known in the society for organizing regular painting exhibitions and workshops. His journey to success was a rollercoaster ride but eventually he was equally respectable and sound as his other friends.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention, there was another batch mate of them. I forgot to mention his name earlier but considering that even his friends remember him only after a reminder, the intensity of my mistake is somewhat pardonable. The reason why we always forget Mr….. I am sorry I forgot his name… let us say Mr. D is because he was not good at anything we can remember off. However, he was not bad at anything either. In language of our discussion, he was the best mediocre, a mediocre financially, academically and talent wise too if he had any. His father was a local small merchant. Once he had his basic education complete, he didn’t have enough to go for more degrees. With no outstanding qualities to support his candidature, even jobs were not so easy to come by. Hence he had no other option than to assist his father. He expanded his father’s small shop to whatever extent he could with his limited capital. His conditions improved and with little effort and some luck, he was owner of one of the landmark superstore in the vicinity. He was not as widely recognized in the world as his other colleagues were yet he was satisfied and carrying out a decent and contended life- until he went for his batch reunion.

He met all his friends and teachers but was feeling a bit uncomfortable in the meeting. In the party it was decided to award the all round best student of the batch. To everyone’s surprise Mr. D won the award as he had an average record in every field considered for evaluation, be it academics, talent, sports or whatever. His other friends had very good score in one of the sections evaluated but they had their other sections begging for some score.

To this award however, Mr. D didn’t react with a very warm feelings. His reaction had a tone of bitterness which was a mystery for many. Now let us put ourselves in his shoe and think, how we would have reacted in such situation? What we need is a rational approach and not an emotional approach. The idea of giving the example was not to create a sympathetic ground but highlight their inability to achieve and accept greatness. One thing is sure that nobody did anything wrong to Mr. D. neither he met any accidents or natural calamities nor his family lost everything in a shipwreck.  The only thing which happened against him is that he didn’t get any support from anywhere to carry out his further studies or train for sports/ music. Thus my point- even under very neutral circumstances where a person doesn’t face any adversities but doesn’t get any help either, he is not so successful and remains very much close to his steady neutral position. (Remember, the pendulum, steady at its position until pushed.)

The Conclusion:

To conclude, we can say that a person must understand his capabilities, limitations as well as his knack. Accordingly, he must develop and adapt himself. My idea behind this writing was neither to create a sympathy wave nor to criticize but to expose the middle class mentality. But to bring in a feeling where they start celebrating their mediocrity as long as they are happy with it. If we flip the pages of history, we’ll find that out of 100 great men, only five were privileged ones, rest all achieved their greatness by their effort and dedication. The situation what Albert Einstein, Hitler or even our very first president Dr. Rajendra Prasad faced in their early days is worse than what Mr. D had. Yet they created the difference. I am not giving any motivational lecture on how to be successful in life as my motif here was only to highlight the problem which is acceptance of mediocrity as a scar to live with. The solution of the problem is already available in abundance and is given by many greats. Hence I have decided to restrict my job to only problem recognition.

To conclude, I can say that a person is neither a Casanova nor a virgin on his own and I do not consider innocence as virginity. It is the situation and his reaction to the situation which determines what he becomes. Hence, what a mediocre needs to do is to change his mindset and stop blaming the situation anymore. All one needs to do is to provide bricks and mortar to his thoughts and aspirations and pop a champagne for their ever lasting and soul satisfying state of above average mediocrity. It is them who have made the aces look great and being a jack doesn’t always mean that you are a jackass !