Organizations in the age of transparency

Image via CrunchBase

Often when I have presented to HR teams that information they believe is confidential - specially "internal information/knowhow" - is not so, and I present information about the company that is present on Glassdoor, Mouthshut or JobBuzz (from TimesJobs)

And then the penny drops.

Salaries. Ratings of company culture/work/benefits/CEO. Interview process. Career growth. Everything is out there.

That is not the only thing. Prospective employees are reaching out to current employees via public platforms like Twitter or more private channels like LinkedIn, and getting to know the inside reality of work in a specific business unit/function or even how the prospective boss is like.

So on the one hand, individuals are finding their information, and on top of that reviewing sites are acting as aggregators for the crowd's views.

There are two things organizations and HR people can do.

1. Ignore it. Pretend it doesn't matter. Justify that the vast majority of their hires do not do such background checks. As of yet. And say that it is anyway skewed as people only vent negative views on such sites.
2. Or accept it. As a trend that is a sign of the times to come and is only going to grow bigger. Also understand that in the age of transparency the culture of the organization is employer's brand. They also understand that they need to tell positive stories and encourage their advocates to also share thier stories. Listen to conversations, and engage to tell their side of the story.

Yes, it is a new normal. And the companies that will benefit the most would be the ones to embrace the change and be the pioneers. And part of that change is understanding that organizational culture is more important than ever - and however HR labels is "Employee Value Proposition" or "Employer Branding" improving internally and sharing that externally is the way to go. As someone said "Social does not change the culture, it makes it public and transparent"

Am featured in today's Hindustan Times

So I am moderating a panel at the Shine HR Summit at Mumbai on 4th, and they asked me some questions - here are my answers

Oh the interview is online. You can read it all here

Crowdsourced: Indian Twitternagar's favorite bloggers

So I asked the Indian twitternagar for who was their favorite Indian blogger.

Here are the responses I have received until now:

Himanshu Kapadia said the late Rehab was his favorite blogger
Ruchi tells me her favorite bloggers are Meeta Sengupta, Abhijit Bhaduri and Manish Chauhan
Shreeharsha tweeted that his favorites were Nirmala (Whom I have followed also :), Sorav Jain, Vinaya Naidu, Jogi and Sandhya
Rajesh Dogra said his favorite blogger is Jyothi Menon
Vibgyor tweeted that his favorite blogger (and also mine) is my friend Gaurav Mishra
Shahid nominated the eminently readable commentary blog on Indian media, Churumuri.
Rimsha (from Pakistan) shared that Kiran Manral's blog is the only one she reads.
Rakesh Kumar nominated two of my favorite bloggers Manu Prasad and Karthik Srinivasan
Guillaume said that uber blogger Amit Varma's posts on poker made him his choice
Ashish Basu said that Nitin Gokhale (Security and Strategic Affairs Editor at NDTV) and Meeta Sengupta were his favorites
Pallavi shared that the Mad Momma, Sunny Days, Diptakirti (my fave Bollywood blog), Just a Mother of two, and Thirty Six And Counting

Quoted in the latest Chief Learning Officer magazine

My twitter friend Dan Pontfract the author of Flat Army: Creating a Connected and Engaged Organization, and Head of Learning & Collaboration at TELUS recently wrote an article in the Chief Learning Officer magazine.

The article is titled "the social C-suite" and Dan says if the C-suite increases its social media use internally and externally, it could be used as a tool to impact organizational competence. You should buy the magazine - I am not sure if it is online right now.

Dan was kind enough to ask me if I would be willing to answer some questions that he would answer. I agreed. Here's what he asked and my answers.

*         What benefits does 'going social' bring members of the C-Suite with respect to internal employee engagement?

Remember the days of T-groups and OD interventions that originated out of NTL? Their objective was to make organizations more open and transparent. The thought being, if feedback loops were open and transparent, then it would be an adaptive and learning organization. "social" shorn of the buzzwords, aims at creating that organization finally. The benefits would be an organization where opinion and information is unfiltered and real time. Eventually creating an organization that responds faster to stimuli - both internal and external.

*         What are 3 key attributes C-Suite members should employ when 'going social' with their employees?

- Willingness to rethink the way they view "management" and "leadership"
- start thinking in flows rather than stocks as Hagel, Brown say in their book "The Power of Pull"
- Stop thinking of the boundaries as opaque walls - both internally and externally. Think of them as porous, translucent membranes.
-Be ready to fail. In public. Embarrassingly. Remember, it's a world of flows. You will recover faster as you will learn faster.

*         What if the C-Suite doesn't go social. What happens or will happen over time?

- The organization will go on. Things will be the same. For a time. Then the slow continental shifts of time will make sure that the organization gets irrelevant. And dies.

The #IndiaHRchat on Twitter. Why you should participate

Image via CrunchBase

For those people not on Twitter, here's an introduction to Twitterchats. A Twitterchat is a conversation centered around a topic which is tracked by a hashtag (denoted by a # sign followed by the name) - So #indiaHRchat would be a twitter chat. This was taken up by Tanvi Gautam (Singapore based consultant) and almost a month ago she hosted the first such chat with special guest Abhijit Bhaduri (Chief Learning Officer - Wipro) on the topic of social media for L&D.

Today evening is the second Twitter chat that Tanvi is hosting - this time the guest is Anand Pillai, Chief Learning Officer of Reliance Industries, and he would be talking on Personal Branding for HR professionals.

The great thing about Twitter chats is that they are not a one on one conversation and that anyone can participate. The open nature of Twitter makes it possible for even people who did not know about it to get involved.

So if you're on Twitter and interested in the topic, join us today from 7 pm IST.

Here's what happened at Abhijit's Twitter chat.

McKinsey on 6 social media skills for leaders

McKinsey Quarterly has a brilliant article on how leaders need to build social media skills, at a personal and organizational/strategic level. Along with examples from GE.

So if you're a leader in an organization which of these skills would you focus on depending on organizational priorities?