EmployWise - Nothing suits me like a suit!

While many companies are turning to a more relaxed, casual work environment, a majority of companies in India have a strict dress code policy although there is very little employee acceptability for such enforced rules. Clothes have a way of reflecting a person’s personality traits and at the same time there is a definite psychological influence on the wearer as well as the audience.

Harvey Specter and Don Draper; two powerful men with good looks and important clients have a knack for closing business deals by their sheer presence. What else do they have in common? A love for suits! The two best dressed men of our times have a fetish for impeccable designer suits and not just because the dress code is so. Even Barney Stintson, America’s favorite lady killer chose his suit over a hot girl. Suits, the epitome of power dressing symbolizes confidence, success and ambition, all at one go.  In India, power dressing is reserved for once-in-a-month events like big-client meetings, conferences and ofcourse job interviews.

While many companies are turning to a more relaxed, casual work environment, a majority of companies in India have a strict dress code policy although there is very little employee acceptability for such enforced rules. Clothes have a way of reflecting a person’s personality traits and at the same time there is a definite psychological influence on the wearer as well as the audience.

Appropriate dress codes are important in a workplace as they reflect the company’s intention to stay focused on serious about their business. A compulsory dress code helps in enhancing and maintaining the company’s public perception and image.  This holds true especially when there is a lot of consumer interface like in banks, educational institutes, retail or consultancies. There is no direct link between dress code and productivity, but surveys point to the fact that casual clothes have a negative influence on the employee’s attitude and energy level. Many firms in India are flexible in their formal dress code attire and do not insist on female employees wearing suits, trousers and shirt or formal skirts. Indian formals (i.e sari and kurti) are also equally acceptable as long as they are not accessorized.. Quite a few firms in India even give out extremely detailed dress codes defining the appropriate heel size for shoes, necktie style or the acceptable jewelry designs. These restrictive policies do not work well in India as employees refuse to accept these given parameters most of the time. 

To avoid the hornet’s nest many companies just ask their employees to ‘dress professionally’. Then there are firms that encourage their employees’ uniqueness by simply asking them to ‘wear something’ like Google India does. Infact until a few years ago, employees of IT firms, dotcoms and even advertising firms could walk in to the office in tank tops, shorts and flip-flops. While such casual clothing attitude does encourage informality and a heightened level of casualness, employers should be proactive in creating and circulating a list of non-acceptable cloth items also. Specific dress code standards should be set up so that employees can differentiate between relaxed, casual and informal dressing styles. Also, the employer needs to lay equal stress on neatness and orderliness as things like unpolished shoes, dirty nails, uncombed hair are also a big no-no in the work-place but in India these things are pointedly ignored as they are too personal in nature.   

It is imperative to have a definite dress code in the office so that employees know what is expected from them and what is not acceptable. It should not follow a specific fashion trend but instead focus on the business environment as it should be appropriate. The employer needs to remember that the employees need to be comfortable in what they wear or productivity will suffer.

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EmployWise - There’s more to Employee Engagement than Just Work!

As the days unfold, businesses and companies face tougher competition and hostile plateaus being set up by consumers who want more from a company. With costs to cut and consumers to impress, companies are torn between these two facets. But there seems to be a ray of hope, Employee engagement! 

Wait, employee engagement?? What’s different apart from engaging an employee by providing him a job in a company? Well actually there’s more, and most of all it could hold the ticket in combating the scenarios most companies find their place in. 

Employee engagement surpasses far beyond than just engaging an employee with his or her respective work, it’s trying to inculcate a model in which an employee can find himself more responsible towards the company’s growth and ideologies. 

We have chosen five models from five of the most successful companies to share their take on employee engagement.

1. Make it strategic - Intel Corporation: Intel sets the stage up by sharing a vision and motto that links employee performances to their business strategy. Intel calculates each employee’s annual bonus directly based on its annual results. This not only incurs a dash of enthusiasm but also establishes a sense of greater responsibility within each employee.
2. Make it personal: Hyatt Hotels & Resorts - Global issues like climate change and biodiversity are issues which each employee is aware of but is hard to implement as a company. Therefore Hyatt Hotels have harnessed the power bestowed in peer to peer influence and social networking to hook up more than 300 green teams worldwide. Employees make use of Facebook and other social websites to post photos and queries about how they can make a change to the environment.
3. Make it Flexible: WalMart - WalMart recognized the need for employee engagement and took a radical step by assigning their own employee engagement schemes to the employee’s itself. Now the employees itself have synthesized a scheme called My Sustainably Plan (MSP) in which more that 2 million associates over 28 countries participate. The scheme encourages employees to share their goals, whether personal or work related to receive feedback from others on how well that goal can be achieved.
4. Make it Easy: Google - Google, already widely known for pampering of employees with knick knacks, educates its employees on the benefits of simple actions like turning of computers at night. Micro kitchens set up around every workplace are designed to encourage the use of reusable dishes and flatware.
5. Make it Last: Cliff Bar - To make an employee engagement scheme a success its vital to pursue the model as an ongoing campaign. Cliff bar has within its model benefit packages like incentives for actions like purchasing a fuel-efficient cat and building eco friendly homes. Ongoing momentum is ensured in weekly staff meetings where employees share ideas for a greener living. 

A good engagement program is a sure shot way to recruit and retain an employee pool with good talent. But engaging employees and encouraging them incurs a strong trust to blossom which drives innovation and creativity ultimately aiding to the company’s growth.

Employwise is a complete HR Software for the life-cycle of an employee including Leave and Attendance software, Employee Database, Travel and Expense Management. Start your free trial for 30 days....

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Keep Rewarding and Benefiting!

Performance management is no longer an annual event. It has become a continuous project, with or without performance management software. The need to evaluate employees regularly especially in terms of goal achievement has become vital for all companies be it big or small. Mentoring is also an integral part of any employee’s development and performance management plays a very important role in gauging the need and extent for coaching and guidance. However, performance management in India is still in an evolutionary stage facing multitudes of challenges.

One of the reasons for this is ineffective communication. Once the employees’ performance review against set goals is completed, the measurements and relevant feedback needs to be shared with the employees in a transparent manner so that there is a scope for improvement in the future. Instead of an annual performance review, feedback should be given on a monthly basis. At the same time, negative feedback should not be delayed but delivered simultaneously. Withholding such information leads to distrust and lowers confidence.

Often poor measurement metrics are developed and while goals are set, no relevant measure is put in place. Performance metrics should be chosen keeping in mind the company structure. Irrelevant mapping can result in distorted results. Also, care should be taken while analyzing the data as any error can disrupt the functioning of the program. Similarly, the old system of keeping scorecards on employees for targets achieved has to go as it has no relevance in the current scenario.

Performance management system also lacks alignment between individual performance, departmental performance and organizational goals.  The gap between companies’ strategic planning and performance review is also a challenge. Strategic planning focuses more on the process and implementation while almost no thought is given towards the employees’ performance and development planning. Organizations need to adjust their goal setting and planning after assessing the employees’ performance.

Adopting performance management as part of the company policies is critical for both the employees and the management. Often, it is not taken seriously by the employees which results in misplaced expectations by the management. Lack of commitment by the management also impacts the delivery of an effective performance management system.

Employee engagement also plays a pivotal role in performance management. The year round process should be conversational and timely and employees should be able to solicit information and feedback from anyone in the hierarchy, making the interface more open. Activities such as team lunch, family days, birthday celebrations, competitions and motivational emails are some of the other ways in which employee engagement can be fostered. Incentivizing top performers without penalizing non-performers can be another way to ensure full employee co-operation. Rewards could be in form of public acknowledgement, financial inducement, educational break, promotion or even a vacation. 

In case of India, there is an urgent need to reduce the element of favoritism and biasness during the performance review. Issues like these should be addressed before it puts a dent on employee morale and compromises the performance completely.

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