Designing A Lesson Plan For The Training Module.

Designing the course involves actually deciding on a plan of action, i.e. a lesson or session plan. This provides you with the orderly procedures for conducting or facilitating a session efficiently. It should not be long (two pages at the most) but should be complete and practical. It should be written or sectioned in a format that is helpful and meaningful to you, the trainer, and it should give you confidence— not only is it proof that you have prepared adequately, but it is your 'prop' if you need it.

The main points of a session plan include:
• Topic
• Objectives—the key part
• Time required and timings
• Learning methods
• Audio-visual aids required
• Questions for checking and review
• Assignment (s) and references

The importance of planning cannot be overemphasized, however experienced you are. Part of the planning process is mental and part is written. Generally, the more inexperienced we are, the more we tend to feel the need to develop written session plans, which give us confidence and serve as a guide to move the learning along in an orderly fashion.

A series of session plans will constitute your course and are useful because they:
• Plan for a smooth transition from previous sessions to new material
• Ensure sequential and adequate presentation of material
• Offer time controls
• Provide for proper use of methods, aids and equipment
• Establish a record of material presented and training accomplished
• Serve as a guide to the trainer so that important points are not omitted
• Help to avoid attempted detours by students and keep you on schedule (if appropriate).

The session plan is your guide and script. It should be flexible to accommodate interruptions, questions and the lack of understanding on the part of the learners. Departures from the written plan can be expected as the learners fail to understand some aspect of the work, become interested in a particular part of the session, or contribute to the session from their own experiences. Sometimes a teaching plan may be used over and over again with the occasional minor revision to adjust to changing needs and situations.

There are numerous types of standardized lesson or session plans that can be used. Many trainers have adopted one to suit their own situations. Below is one session plan form that can be modified according to your own situation.

• Topic:
• Time and length:
• Learning objective (s):
• Group/Class/Target audience:
• Student preparation:
• Teaching aids required:
• Materials for student use:
• Handouts required:
• Evaluation:
• Lesson outline:             a) Timing              b) Key points              c) Delivery sequence              d) Briefing for following assignment

The key to any session plan is the listing of objectives. Always keep these in your mind and consider the behavior that your learners will be capable of at the end of the session which they were not capable of at the start. This will not only help you focus more clearly, but also help you recognize when the desired changes or results have been accomplished. If you are unsure of what to expect as a result of your session, you are less likely to know if it happened.

No session plan is perfect and so always consider ways to improve it. Always review it and do so soon after the event while it is still fresh in your mind. The session plan is your tool to help you—beforehand to prepare, during the lesson to help conduct a successful learning experience, and afterwards to evaluate whether you achieved your objectives.

Problem of language in Training & Development..

Language comprises of both spoken and unspoken means of communication. Bestest of the best training program will fail if trainer is not well versed in communicating trainees’ language. Language is one of the most important ingredients of culture. Spoken Language– Trainees’ receiving training prefer to speak in their own language and trainer being able to speak the local language can help establishing rapport among trainees, which may be very important for the transfer of training. Language is one of the major barriers when it comes to giving training in cross-cultural environment. Chinese is the mother tongue of the largest number of people (shown below), followed buy English and Hindi. Unspoken Language– means non-verbal communication, a very important part of communication. It is a communication that uses body movements and gestures such as, raising eyebrows, smiling, hand movements, facial expressions, etc. A failure to understand unspoken language can lead to a failure of communication because body language is not the same in every culture. For instance, raising eyebrows is a sign of recognition in most cultures, but in some cultures, it’s not. Similarly, making a circle with the thumb and forefinger is a friendly gesture in the US, but it is obscene invitation in Turkey and Greece. Also, thumbs up gesture is used to indicate that “its fine” in the US and Europe, but it is vulgar gesture in Greece. Another case of unspoken language is the amount of distance between the persons talking to each other. In Latin America, the distance adopted by parties in a business discussion is 3 to 5 feet while in the US, it is 5 to 8 feet. In the training context, if the trainer gives training in Latin America and maintains a much larger distance than desired in their training culture, then in turn, it may result in a regrettable lack of rapport between the trainer and the trainee. Therefore, using the right body language is very important in cross-cultural training.

Challanges Faced By Training Managers

WHAT IS TRAINING?

          TRAINING is a learning process that involves the acquisition of knowledge, sharpening of skills, concepts, rules, or changing of attitudes and behaviours to enhance the performance of employees.

IMPORTANCE OF TRAINING:

• Optimum Utilization of Human Resources
• Development of Human Resources
• Development of skills of employees
• Productivity
• Team spirit
• Quality
• Healthy work environment
• Health and Safety
• Morale
• Profitability

WHO ARE THE TRAINING MANAGERS?

          Training and development managers and specialists conduct and supervise training and development programs for employees. Increasingly, management recognizes that training offers a way of developing skills, enhancing productivity and quality of work, and building loyalty to the firm. Training is widely accepted as a method of improving employee morale, but this is only one of the reasons for its growing importance.

The New Performance Appraisal

As we all know the importance and role Performance Appraisal in the organization. So here are some mordern methods of performance appraisal which makes the whole process very easy:

1. 360 degree Appraisal Method:

                360 Degree Feedback is a system or process in which employees receive confidential, anonymous feedback from the people who work around them.

Who should conduct 360 degree performance appraisal?

• Peers
• Managers (i.e. superior).
• Subordinates.
• Team members.
• Customers.
• Suppliers/ vendors.

Anyone who comes into contact with the employee and can provide valuable insights and information.

What’s a 360 degree measure?

• 360 degree measures behaviours and competencies.
• 360 degree provides feedback on how others perceive an employee.
• 360 degree addresses skills such as listening, planning, and goal-setting.
• 360 degree focuses on subjective areas such as teamwork, character, and leadership effectiveness.

360 degree appraisal has four components: -

• Self appraisal
• Superior’s appraisal
• Subordinate’s appraisal
• Peer appraisal.

2. Performance Agreement:

Role requirements - these are set out in the form of the key result areas of the role: what the role holder is expected to achieve (outputs and outcomes).

Objectives in the form of targets and standards of performance.

Performance measures and indicators to assess the extent to which objectives and standards of performance have been achieved.

Knowledge, skill and competence - definitions of what role holders have to know and be able to do (competences) and of how they are expected to behave in particular aspects of their role ( competencies). These definitions may be generic, having been prepared for occupations or job families on an organization- or function-wide basis. Role-specific profiles should, however, be agreed, which express what individual role holders are expected to know and do.

Corporate core values or requirements - the performance agreement may also refer to the core values of the organization for quality, customer service, team working, employee development etc, which individuals are expected to uphold in carrying out their work. Certain general operational requirements may also be specified in such areas as health and safety, budgetary control, cost reduction and security.

A performance plan - a work plan that specifies what needs to be done to improve performance. A personal development plan, which specifies what individuals need to do with support from their manager to develop their knowledge and skills.

Process details - how and when performance will be reviewed and a revised performance agreement concluded.

3. Psychological Appraisals:
                  Large organization employs full-time industrial psychologists. When psychologists are used for evaluations. They assess an individual’s future potential and past performance. The appraisal normally consists of in-depth interviews, psycho1ogical tests. Discussions with supervisors and a review' of other evaluations. The psychologist then write an evaluation of the employee's intellectual, emotional, motivational and other-related characteristics that suggest individual potential and may predict future performance. The evaluation by the psychologist may be for a specific job opening for which the person is being considered. Or it may be a global assessment of his or her future potential. From these evaluations Placement and development decisions may be made to shape the person's career. Because this approach is slow and costly, it is usually required for bright young members who, others think. May have considerable potential within the organisation. Since the quality of the appraisal depends largely on the skills of the psychologists, some employees object to this type of evaluation, especially if cross-cultural differences exist.

The Mordern Recruitment:

Human resource management or managing “people” includes several activities. Today acquiring and retaining the employees is the biggest challenge. Thus staffing is a vital activity. Staffing facilitates the supply of employees. These employees are needed to fulfill the Organizational goals and objectives by their effective and efficient performance. And recruitment is a logical step in this staffing process. Recruitment is the process of creating huge pool of potential candidates. It attracts the prospective employees and stimulates them to apply for job.

Recruitment before nineteenth century was based on the apprenticeship system. Apprentices were not the employees of the Organization, but after completion of apprenticeship they were absorbed in the company. Compared to apprentices the skilled and qualified candidates were more desirable.

FORMS OF RECRUITMENT

              Forms of recruitment can be broadly categorized into two. One is centralized and the other is decentralized. Centralized recruitment is in action when the organization is having a centralized power structure and the departments are not involved in decision making, it is only concentrated in one central department. In government Organizations it is visible, like in State Bank of India.

Decentralized recruitment is having authority to each department to choose their staff. The companies who are geographically spread, or very big in size will find this form convenient. But the philosophy and Organization culture determines which to follow; like Bausch & Lomb have centralized recruitment form as well as G.E Opticals have the decentralized form.

NEW FORM OF RECRUITMENT:

E RECRUITMENT-

E-recruitment is a tool for many employers to search for job candidates and for applicants to look for job. Recent trend of recruitment is e-recruitment or the internet recruitment or on-line recruitment, where the process of recruitment is automated. The automation began in 1980 but was systematized in 1990 with the release of Restrac’s initial product. E-recruitment simply means the recruitment process through internet. Various methods can be used for it.

E-RECRUITING METHODS

Methods of e-recruitment are many, among those the important ones are-

• Job boards: These are the places where the employers post jobs and search for candidates. Candidates become aware of the vacancies. One of the disadvantages is, it is generic in nature. Special skill candidates to be searched by certain job boards.
• Employer web sites: These sites can be of the company owned sites, or a site developed by various employers. For an example, Directemployers.com is the first cooperative, employer-owned e-recruiting consortium formed by Direct Employers Association. It is a non profit organization formed by the executives from leading U.S corporations. Press release by Recruiters Network (February 20, 2003) showed the site has 98 members approximately 45 percent of which are Fortune 500 companies.

• Professional websites: These are for specific professions, skills and not general in nature. For an example, for HR jobs Human Resource Management sites to be visited like www.shrm.org. The professional associations will have their own site or society.

MODERN TRENDS OF E-RECRUITMENT

• Speedy communication: Company and the prospective employee can communicate with each other via the blogs. Thus blogs, podcasts, vodcasts are being considered a tool of e-recruitmant. No more the process can be blamed for being one way communication like mails, faxes only being speedy as done electronically. Podcasts are the services of digital media files. Vodcasts are the video podcasts.
• Candidate’s preference: History states that employers had the privilege to be selective in hiring process, especially in screening resumes but were not always fair. Because of the time constraint it was not possible to go through all the applications. Today the candidates can choose their employers as not only the financial state is known to them but also the culture is known. Applying for the Organization will no more be influenced only by the image.

• Search engine advertisement: Print ad is phasing out due the popularity of search engine ads. Pay-per-click is not only convenient but also more attractive.
• RSS feed: Job boards are embracing RSS feed. Hotjobs, Google deserves special mention. Google offers one to upload the jobs on Google Base even when one doesn’t have their own site. RSS can be read using software “RSS reader”. It is a family of web feed formats use to publish frequently updated works. Such as blog entries, news headlines in a standard format.

CONCLUSION-

         Traditional methods should not be replaced by the e-recruitment, it should supplement. The loopholes of e-recruitment can be covered by the traditional methods and recruitment process will be faster, global due to e-recruitment. One method should not replace the other. When two vacancies are there and two candidates are available the companies do not have much choice, thus they prefer to widen their search and attracts numerous applications. But when for two vacancies a company receive 2000 application, the in depth screening process is not possible. While other methods like campus interview, internal search has a personal touch. But receiving application in hand, communicating with candidates becomes time consuming without internet.

Article written by,

Arundhati Ghosh, Junior Faculty Member
Icfai National College,Kolkata

What's New In HR

Human resource management, if we see it from definition perspective “it is a process of bringing people and organizations together so that the goals of each others are met”.

If we see in practical situation the above definition its just one side of a coin which has limited HRM involvement but HRM today is a different story, it have changed the way we work, and also it helps an organization to survive in recessionary period. Managing and attracting the human resource in today’s time is very difficult task. The role of HR manager has changed a lot (Dancing differently on changing tunes of life) from being protector and screener to the role of Savior who acts as planner and change agent affecting bottom of the pyramid where it is blue collar workers & at the Top & Middle level executives.


The trends in human resource industry are dynamic in nature which contributes towards to achievement of organization goals. Over the years, highly skilled and knowledge based jobs have increased while low skilled jobs are decreasing. This calls for skill mapping through proper HRM initiatives.

Change is inevitable as said and that’s what Indian organizations are witnessing in management cultures, systems and working style. Alignment with global companies has forced Indian organization accept and incorporate change in every day life which makes role of HRM all the more important.

Some of the recent changes are as follows:

The policies of many companies have become people centric, traditionally the policies mainly focused on achievement of organizational goals showing negligence towards the human resource.

• Attracting and retaining of human resource has become difficult as loyalty factor is losing its shine, today HR personnel have to motivate and design healthy career road map to make them stay in the company.
• Human Resource Outsourcing is the new name in the industry to replace the redundant traditional HR department. Many HR outsourcing companies in India are already established and some are coming up to support increasing demand of corporate India.
• With the increase of global job mobility, recruiting competent people is also increasingly becoming difficult, especially in India. Therefore organizations are also required to work out a retention strategy for the existing skilled manpower.

HR managers today are focusing on policies (trust, openness & equality), Motivation, Relations. Due to new trends in HR the manager should treat people as resources, reward them equitably and integrate their goals with that of the organizational goals through suitable HR policies.

Conclusion:“I never predict. I just look out the window and see what is visible – but not yet seen” (Peter Drucker)
Trends in Human resource management have changed the way we work, as organizations are more depended on HRM to increase the success ratio in today’s competitive global environment. Trends will continue to come as time and opportunities will keep you guessing what’s next?

This article is given by:

Miss Priti Shah

New Trends In Giving Rewards To The Employees..

Organizations today have realized that cash is easily replicable by others and hence to remain competitive in such a dynamic environment the employees need to introduce a differentiator which caters to the needs of diverse cultures. Strong Rewards and Recognition Program is becoming a top priority for organizations with CEOs and board members getting closely involved and that the effectiveness of all tangible and intangible rewards programs must be monitored periodically.

Before defining the categories/areas or behavior, one needs to be clear what will they recognize or in other words what the organization wants its employees to deliver. In this regard, I thought of sharing few objectives to reward like:

•Team Work
•People or subordinate development
•Achievement Orientation
•Innovation & Creativity
•Enhancing company’s brand in external forums
•Social work
•Improvements at work place
•Motivation
•Timely Delivery
There can be multiple ways in which a rewards program can be structured to recognize an employee; some of them are mentioned here:

Time Based Recognition Awards: Rewards that are time dependent like weekly, monthly, quarterly, bi-annually, annually etc
Rewards For Functional Excellence: Rewarding employees for delivering on time, best team awards, rewarding for exceptional customer service, cost efficiencies
Rewards For Individual Departments or Groups: Rewarding exceptional performance in sales, finance, HR etc
Informal Appreciations: a pat on the back, recognizing in front of the team, group parties or get together, spot recognitions etc
Creating individual centric or Popular Category of Rewards: These rewards can be like brand ambassador, I want to be like, Best Mentor, birthdays and anniversary etc


The categories of Rewards and Recognition program are dependent on the company vision, values and goals. After all these rewards will ultimately result in a behavior which the organization wants its employees to exhibit and instill within them. For some people the rewards may be financially, but for others it will be a question of branding, status, good resorts & restaurants, free movie tickets, games etc. To sum it a better and more wholesome life. Employees will be enjoying their rewards and feel motivated because you are rewarding them for working the way you wanted.

While designing rewards and recognition program it is to be ensured that it doesn’t loose its novelty and time to time changes and additions must be done to make the entire process more rejuvenating and special for people.
Reference:-
amitbhagria@younghrmanager.com or through his company's web site at http://www.younghrmanager.com

NEW TRENDS IN HR...

"Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to win the future". John F Kennedy.

Success and failure of business depends upon the effective and efficient management of the organization. Neither the Great Wall nor the Parthenon would have been built without proper Management .

Growth and development an organization depends upon the workforce it owns. It is very much said that growth and development of the organization depends upon the growth and development of the employees and vis-à-vis. But the scene of today was not in the yesteryears. The industrial revolution in eighteenth and nineteenth- century were in need to coordinate the efforts of large number of people in the production process. Britain provides more recent witness to the practice of management leaving written traces of concern for management. Those were the days when employees were considered as machines and were only to give maximum output. No facilities, no infrastructure, no relations, no group, no team. Only relations with the organization were to give maximum output. They were not trained; jobs were not specific and scientific. Charles Babbage, for example wrote about the need for the systematic study and standardization of work operations to improve productivity.

The contributed valuable ideas of Elton Mayo, Fredeic Taylor, Robert Owen, Charles Dupin, Mc Gregor, Henry Fayol and many more laid the foundation for subsequent, broader inquiries into the nature of management, which ultimately lead to the betterment of human resource. From workers to associates of the organization is a long journey that has taken place.

With the continuous increasing competition and countries becoming global, the Organization's concept for HR has changed. It's the need of the time to consider the employees as the resource. The organization which are working on the principle of Attracting, Managing, Nurturing and Retaining their employees are moving ahead with the competition and are having competitive advantage over other organizations. The organizations believe in having brains working for them and are giving them full space to explore experiment and exploit their ideas, creativity and innovativeness. The employees are being involved in the workings of the organizations, and their efforts are recognized and rewarded.

Companies no more believe in the tall hierarchical structures, and cubical with closed doors of the boss but have given way for flat organizational structures with more spans of control and less chain of command. The doors of the boss are open. In place of being the autocratic leaders or managers they play the role of team builders, mentors, coach or counselors. Following the principles of retaining the brains in the organization, the policies have become more and more flexible providing alternative and flexible work schedule. Flexi time, compressed week, job sharing, telecommuting is some of these. It not only caters the need of the employees and help in retaining them rather 24 Hrs accessibility of manpower to the work is there. To be ahead in the competition and a step ahead with the expectations of the employee's work place is becoming family friendly and employee friendly. The companies emphasize in providing them all the facilities, statutory and non statutory. Training and development are the other areas where organizations are trying to take the lead over other organizations so that employees can be made multiskilled to handle multiple tasks. The new horizon has opened up where the organizations competing are clubbing together to form the network of talents.

Organizations today are not only making the structure and policies employee friendly rather are trying to improve the quality of work life where employees can enjoy their working and will be able to manage the balance between work life and personal life. They provide them the in-house facility of health club, yoga, meditation, alternative work schedule, picnics, and family get together where they can reduce their stress and strains. They also provide educational facility, medical facility etc. Some companies also provide the employees holiday package along with their family members. The idea behind is not only to have a happy workforce but to get extended to the families of the employees as well to develop a sense of belongingness in the employees.

Other areas where remarkable changes are being made are in communication pattern. Gone are the days when employees feared talking to their bosses and had to wait for weeks to get their things reached to them. Every thing has changed. Things are replaced by cross communication, gang plank mechanism, open door policy, internet, intranet, mentoring, counseling, coaching etc. Communication is no more restricted to from top to bottom rather bottom to up is encouraged more in the organization to make functioning more smooth and to have grievance free, satisfied employees.

With the continuous rise in competition, business cannot flourish if individualism is prevailing in the company. Therefore to meet the need of the time the growing organizations are following collectivism culture, where working in groups and teams are emphasized. The problems are not moved up for the solutions rather are tried to solve at the same level, opening the way for concepts of Quality circles, Self Managed Teams Cross Functional teams etc. These techniques make the employees work in group or team, upgrade them, empower them and sharpens their creativity and innovativeness.

Performance appraisal has also taken a new shape. It's not confined to the boss and subordinates, rather more emphasis is being given on overall appraisal of the employees (360 degree appraisal). Employees are also given opportunities for succession growth. Many leading organizations look for the competencies rather than experience and age. They try to infuse new blood in the organization, and make them learn and unlearn according to their needs and requirements.

To conclude, change is the necessary to survive. Those who changes with the change survive and those who not strive and vanish. What is today may be obsolete tomorrow. It is necessary to upgrade and restructure every time to withstand and face the situations. HR policies of the organization should also be changed with the time and new strategies, policies should come up to retain the talents in the organization.
This article is by,
KP Kanchana
Faculty ICFAI

Global HRM...

Global HRM places greater emphasis on a number of responsibilities and functions such as relocation, orientation and translation services to help employees adapt to a new and different environment outside their own country.

• Selection of employees requires careful evaluation of the personal characteristics of the candidate and his/her spouse.


• Training and development extends beyond information and orientation training to include sensitivity training and field experiences that will enable the manager to understand cultural differences better. Managers need to be protected from career development risks, re-entry problems and culture shock.


• To balance the pros and cons of home country and host country evaluations, performance evaluations should combine the two sources of appraisal information.




• Compensation systems should support the overall strategic intent of the organization but should be customized for local conditions.


• In many European countries - Germany for one, law establishes representation. Organizations typically negotiate the agreement with the unions at a national level. In Europe it is more likely for salaried employees and managers to be unionized.

The top 7 challenges HR professionals are hearing from management:

It's a tough world for human resource professionals these days. Staying competitive in a tight job market. Coordinating a multicultural workforce. Balancing legal compliance issues with productivity and profit concerns. In the decade we've been working with human resource professionals, here are the top seven challenges we hear most often.

1. "We have multicultural workers who aren't familiar with U.S. employment law and may unwittingly put us at legal risk." What if, when a decision to bring an employee from another country, he or she could immediately be trained with the tools to avoid potential U.S. legal pitfalls?
2. "Our managers are promoted because of their technical expertise, but lack the interpersonal skills to be effective leaders." What if, when a technical employee was promoted to manager, he or she could get immediate training on effective leadership, including how to deal with inappropriate employee behavior?
3. "I often hear of inappropriate jokes or have gotten e-mails that could create legal trouble for me or my company." What if, when a new employee was hired, he or she could have immediate training on what behaviors your company wants to promote -- and what behaviors will create legal risk?
4. "I spend too much of my time dealing with 'people problems.'"

   What if, when a new employee was hired, he or she could have immediate training on what behaviors your company wants to promote -- and what behaviors will create legal risk?

   And what if, when a technical employee was promoted to manager, he or she could get immediate training on effective leadership, including how to deal with inappropriate employee behavior?

5. "As our company grows, I have to deal more often with inappropriate behavior complaints."

   What if, when a new employee was hired, he or she could have immediate training on what behaviors your company wants to promote -- and what behaviors will create legal risk?

   What if, when a technical employee was promoted to manager, he or she could get immediate training on effective leadership, including how to deal with inappropriate employee behavior?

6. "Our managers know what's inappropriate at work, but are reluctant to deal with employees who are doing things they shouldn't." What if, when a technical employee was promoted to manager, he or she could get immediate training on effective leadership, including how to deal with inappropriate employee behavior?
7. "I know office romance is going to happen, but too often it results in hurt feelings, excessive gossip, or the perception of favoritism."

   What if, when a new employee was hired, he or she could have immediate training on what behaviors your company wants to promote -- and what behaviors will create legal risk?

   And what if, when faced with potential employment-related litigation, you had a system that documented your good faith effort to prevent harassment and discrimination?