Sydney bus drivers defy union, take wildcat action - IIPM Think Tank

A six-hour strike by 130 bus drivers in western Sydney on August 28, 2009, carried out in defiance of their union, produced furious denunciations in the media and from an industrial court judge. The drivers protested against the imposition of new timetables that imposed shorter time for routes.

Drivers said the timetables would force them to run late and that would be the cause of inconvenience to passengers. They would also be under pressure to drive over the speed limit. Months of trade union talks with the company failed to halt the onerous new conditions. Angered by the lack of support from the Transport Workers Union (TWU), the drivers conducted their own stoppages, giving no warning to the union or management. The TWU opposed the strike and intervened to end it.

The mass media launched a scathing attack on drivers for halting services from the depot during the morning peak hour. Drivers called it ‘sheer hypocrisy’ saying passengers were frequently left stranded due to delays caused by the already overstretched timetables.

The Busways Group, owning these buses, is a large private operator, holding lucrative government contracts to run more than 600 buses, and employs more than 700 drivers, on 100 routes across Sydney and New South Wales Central Coast regions. Click here to read full IIPM Editorial

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Oppressed and angry

The trade union movement in India is about a century old. However, Indian trade unions have a shorter history in comparison with those in the United States and the United Kingdom. It was only in 1851 that the first modern factory – a cotton mill – was set up in Calcutta. This marked the industrial beginning in India, which progressed very slowly. It took another 50 years for the trade union movement to actually take a formal shape.

During 1877, the working and living conditions of workers were inhuman, and as a result they went on a strike protesting against such grim conditions. This was the first strike (recorded) at the Empress Mills in Nagpur (Maharashtra) over wage rates. Between 1882 and 1890, 25 strikes were recorded in Madras and Bombay presidencies. These strikes took place spontaneously, though there were no formal organisations of workers. Click here to read more..

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Bihar government has approached the World Bank for loan to train school teachers in the state.

Teacher training and development is fast emerging as a key area where more attention and emphasis is required to ensure the educational standards go further up in Indian colleges and universities. The west has a fairly long history in focusing on academia development and perhaps for the same reason considered as a Mecca for students. Many institutes in the United States and Europe have devised short-term courses in learning, teaching and assessment to equip the teaching staff with techniques that help them deliver better.

As Elizabeth Jones writes in Growing Teachers: Partnerships in Staff Development (1993): “Teachers learn about teaching and learning by playing the teacher script, observing what happens, and discussing all the possibilities with other teachers. In this process, they come to see themselves as people who know thereby people capable of making appropriate choices for themselves and for children.”

In Training Teachers: A Harvest of Theory and Practice (1994), Margie Carter and Deb Curtis refer to the need for teachers to examine their own filters – the experiences and conditioning they bring to a teaching situation as well as examining their roles and strategies to see what role they play in their interactions with children.

In the United Kingdom, more teachers are to be trained ‘on the job’ rather than in universities, as announced by education secretary Micheal Gove recently. “The impact of these changes on initial teacher training will be revolutionary,” said Gove. A study by Graham Gibbs of Oxford University and Martin Coffey of University of Leicester – to see the impact of training of university teachers on their teaching skills – concludes that training can indeed increase the extent to which they adopt student focus. “Training of university teachers is now established in every university in the United Kingdom, Norway and Sri Lanka and is becoming increasingly common in many other countries. Click here to read more...

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Teaching is an art because each teacher has his or her own strength and own way to be effective.

Q. And, how can you gauge the effectiveness of the teacher?

A. We need to do simple and practical assessments of how students learn and by what processes they learn effectively. For instance, when Sesame Street started, the plan was to have people as instructors because it was believed that a focus on people would be more effective in creating learning amongst students. Since the people at Sesame Street were open to testing that question, they compared the engagement levels by replacing human beings with muppets. Contrary to their expectations, they found that a muppet was of much higher interest to students than people. Hence, we see all the famous muppets that are part of Sesame Street, like Big Bird and Elmo.

Q. Do you feel that curriculum today is an attraction to the youth or is there a change required to draw them towards making career in different fields?

A. Curriculum definitely needs to be changed. We need to modify it so that it has diversity built into it, which will enable people to learn in the ways that are most effective. With dynamic curricula, a teacher becomes an important practitioner who is helping to figure out the ways learning, goals and interests vary amongst students.

Q. What reforms in academia do you see as the need of the hour?

A. Most important – we need to move away from teaching everyone in one way and focus on how students learn effectively in different ways. I have worked with a number of schools and the most effective institutions have been the ones that deal with student differences. These are the schools that focus on each student and his or her most effective learning methods.

Q. Today best teaching and learning resources are available in English. Does language create a barrier between the seeker (not so proficient in English) and focus of knowledge on English? If yes, how can the teacher help?

A. There is research today that demonstrates that multilingual people are more flexible in their thinking skills. Evidence shows that they are more flexible and adaptable in their learning strategies. If teachers can honour different languages and build on the natural flexible thinking ability that comes from being multilingual, educationists can bridge this gap and take advantage of the cognitive flexibility that comes with being multilingual. Click here to read full interview...

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Dr. Prakash V Bhide [President – Corporate HR, JK Organization (E.Z.)] has an inherent zeal for transforming the lives for a better tomorrow. He shares with Schweta Chaturvedi the growth path he has chalked out for his people and The HR practices at the over 100-year-old establishment

“I took it up as the future looked full of opportunities. I had the chance to go to the top 20 and be a part of the board from the 6 or 7,000 employees. This marked the beginning of Dr. Bhide’s successful career in HR.

Reminiscing his initial days, he says: “I still remember I used to prepare questionnaires and go to HR Heads of organisations such as Phillips and HUL, and ask them to share their views.” Later, to supplement practical knowledge, Dr. Bhide did his doctorate in HR. Talk of all the years he had spent in HR, Dr. Bhide believes men are more complex than machines. “This field has taught me that there are different people with different aspirations and so are their issues. Also, people behave differently as individuals as compared to when in a group. So handling HR is a much challenging job.

Linking HR to business, Dr. Bhide emphasises on the contribution of HR to business. “Today, the first thing I see is that my HR group contributes to business.” It is important to love your business first. HR should have equally good understanding of other functions like marketing and finance. In other words, they should have a good commercial and and financial sense, and should not be confined to HR. If one wants to understand the challenges, one has to have in-depth knowledge about business and general issues, the economy, land acquisition and other related issues. HR people are perceived as theoreticians and not practical. One has to be practical; for this you may not have to be rigid on everything. You have to see what works. Read more..

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Eileen Crawley (Trainer, Consultant, HRM Specialist Crawley & Canovas, Malaysia) says self-knowledge is important for any change scenario

Q. Define effective recruitment and retention strategies.
A. Identify and select an internal change management team in collaboration with new partners in the company. Reaffirm the positions of the heads of business units you intend to retain.

Include these in your change planning and management activities and ensure their participation to ensure buy-in. Recruit heads of new units from outside if they have a unique skill set.

Q. Do you see a need for HR to identify internal loopholes? What could be the probable faults that it may come across?
A. Self-knowledge is important for any change scenario. Information on excellent subordinates may have been hidden by managers who wish to retain their own status. Individuals may use the change scenario for their personal benefit and over-emphasise their abilities, whereas less confident ones may underestimate their strengths. Here, outside consultants should be used to re-evaluate staff before redundancy decisions are made.

Q. How can HR effectively deal with the leadership change?
A. HR should not introduce new senior people to the existing competent staff and should focus on internal promotion strategies, wherever possible. It should select new leaders willing to take time to develop relationships with the existing staff and thus build confidence and support for the change. HR should select employees who are positive about the new vision and change programme to lead the transition. Read more...

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The wow Bandwagon!

Passionate about linking strategy and HR and translating this into measurable delivered results, Ms. Aparna Ballakur has over 15 years of experience with companies such as Adobe Systems, McAfee Software and Sasken Communications. After B.E. from the University of Mysore, she has completed an Executive Leadership Program from Cornell University and the Strategic Human Resources program from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Q. What drew you towards HR? Also, share your experience working with companies like Adobe and McAfee.
A. I started my career as an R&D engineer and entering into HR was a stroke of serendipity. I chose to stay on because I enjoyed the work and the learning that came along. What caught my attention was that there is a lot of functional expertise within the HR which a lot of people outside the profession are not aware of.

My experience in the two companies was very different. McAfee – my first company – gave me experience and understanding of what it meant to work in a multinational environment. They were just starting their operations in India when I joined; there I got an opportunity to build the R&D centre.

At Adobe, I was managing India and China operations. I got an opportunity to set up the centre in China and learnt how things work there. Culturally, both the nations are very different.

Q. How can you ensure a worldclass HR organisation?
A. Factors that contribute to make a world-class HR organisation are:
• To build the best possible HR team – Talented people are key to enable rapid growth of the organisation or managing change effectively.
• Aligning it very closely to the business – A world-class team needs to have a deep understanding of the business and serve as business partners. It is HR’s responsibility to help business leaders understand how people-related issues impact results.
• Flawless execution – Flawless execution beats everything else. From a strategic perspective, the prime focus for the teams should be on partnering with all stakeholder in the organisation towards building people and organisational capability. From an operational execution perspective, the focus should be on streamlining the efficiency and effectiveness of HR delivery with all stakeholder.
• Minimal dissonance between stated and unstated culture – Against the common notion, I believe that HR alone is not the custodian of the culture. Culture preservation is everyone’s responsibility and each and every employee needs to embody that. At best, a world-class HR organisation can minimise the dissonance between the stated and unstated culture. It can influence and reinforce the stated culture of the organisation through processes, policies or recognition of certain behaviours and coaching leaders to ensure the stated culture is the real culture.

Q. How does Yahoo! retain its top employees?
A. At Yahoo! we settle for nothing less than an addictive combination of work, opportunity and workplace, or ‘WOW’, as we call it. The ‘work’ we do is fun, since we build cool stuff that impacts over 700 million users on the internet. I think the ability to touch millions of people across the world on a daily basis continues to be one of the most appealing aspect. Our employees get the ‘opportunity’ to work on bleeding edge innovation, alongside some of the best minds in the business. The opportunity that we give to our employees is our USP. We have created a work environment that is flexible, open and conducive to building a diverse and inclusive workforce. Click here to read more...

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More Sharing ServicesShare | Share on facebookShare on myspaceShare on googleShare on twitter Engage your employees to counter pull for talent

Q. How would you describe your experience with Accor?
A. It has been an outstanding, elevating, energising, and exciting journey. One of Accor’s core values is the ‘Spirit of Conquest’ and my journey so far exemplifies this to the core. An outstanding feature of the journey so far has been to experience, imbibe,and replicate the Accor culture in our properties.

Q. What are the major HR challenges in hospitality sector?
A. It is talent. There is an urgent need to diversify the sources of talent to include relatively non-traditional markets and to ensure better and more sustainable quality. Apart, employee have more diversified options today, the pull for talent by competition is severe and can destabilise organisations. There is a need to understand what motivates and engages employees in order to help talent retention.

Q. What are current HR trends?
A. The increasing realisation that the biggest barrier to an effective and sustained HR role is the socio-economic cultural factors that shape personality which impacts the organisational capability. I believe that emotional and spiritual intelligence play a significant role in offloading obsolete HR practices that enable transformation of personalities and character traits. Click here to read full interview...

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I was not very good at thinking quickly about simple things - Prof. Aaron Ahuvia

Q. You have talked about social norms impacting the way markets operate. Is this a particularly significant factor in India, a traditionally conservative market?
A. Social norms are incredibly powerful in explaining people’s behaviours everywhere, but are slightly more powerful in traditional or socially conservative cultures. But the big difference in traditional cultures is that many people there are not surprised to learn that they are powerful; it is a part of life and they are aware of it. On the other hand, many Western cultures believe in the ideology of people being true to themselves without giving in to peer pressure; they tend to deceive themselves into thinking ‘I will do what I think is right’, which is non-sensible. So I think there is more self-awareness in traditional cultures.

Q. What is the relevance of social marketing to India?
A. There are a lot of efforts on to promote social issues in India, and I think this has huge potential. For a long time, advertising attempted to simply persuade people to change their behaviour. While this method can be effective in some situations, it is often very hard. We now have lots of examples of people finding creative ways to get behaviour to change voluntarily. To be able to do that involves telling others what they should be doing, rather than just communicating a message. Click here to read full Inverview....

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Gurus of HR

More Than HR Global (MTHRG), a rapidly growing body of HR professionals celebrated its 10th anniversary in April this year.As part of the celebrations, it organised a number of surprises for the HR community. One of them was the line-up of international gurus for a series of lectures in Mumbai and Bengaluru.

Bob Urichuck’s seminar ‘Up Your Bottom Line,’ was presented by MTHRG and Right Selection Group in Mumbai on 29th April and in Bengaluru on 30th April. The Human Factor magazine was the partner for the events.

The guest keynote speaker at Mumbai was Walter Vieira, described by Philip Kotler as one of ‘the best speakers on Marketing in Asia’. Overlaying contemporary marketing lessons on proven marketing knowledge, Walter from his 25 years of experience offered rich insights into new concepts and developments in HR. He shared real-life cases and examples on topics that included Customer Value, Cost to the Customer, Convenience, and Communication. Click her to read more....

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IIPM Editorial

Even those who make such doomsday predictions and projections privately admit that their forecasts are grossly exaggerated. Take energy security. Sure nuclear energy will be a big plus, once it is fully operational around 2020 if the deal goes through now. If basic reforms in the sector are not implemented now, power cuts will anyway cripple India long before nuclear power arrives. And who says that the deal can never ever be revived if it fails this time? Nobody seems to be talking about that. Then again, it will be good for Bengal if the Nano project is kick started at Singur. But will its relocation forever destroy Bengal as an investment destination? If the state, like India, can provide the right environment, the right infrastructure and a lucrative market, investors – both domestic and international automatically flow. And one nuclear deal and one Nano project will not permanently change that equation.....Continue

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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