Covid 19 pandemic has created a ‘New Normal’ situation for everyone. This new normal will be a permanent feature in our day to day working for years to come and will apply to businesses whether we work from home ( WFH ) or remote and office environment.

Along with the new normal, some of the old elements of business essentials are becoming more prominent, especially for businesses where the complexities have increased due to remote or WFH situation.

One of the essentials that has gained more prominence or importance is called ‘Team working, ‘which has become a critical factor while selecting a fresh talent in the ‘New Normal’.

Today our focus is on understanding three vital components of this ingredient team playing. These three components are also called three virtues.

Humbleness :

This virtue is the vital ingredient of the team player. In fact, without humbleness, one cannot become an ace team player. Recognizing others’ contribution, sharing credit, and collective responsibility are some of the characteristics of humility.

Hungry:

Eagerness to learn more,take additional responsibilities, along with self-motivation are some of the qualities of hungry people.

Smart:

Understanding the ground realities along with good judgement and sensing the  opportunities, and taking the positive moves are a few characteristics of smart people.

Having understood the three virtues of team players let us understand how to identify these team players during the selection process.

One of the proven and tested methods of identifying these virtues amongst the candidates is to ask for examples of these qualities through success stories or live examples while interviewing candidates.You will able to have a good understanding of whether candidates have these virtues.

Needless to say, Pinnacle will be happy to provide necessary assistance in augmenting the interview skills of your selection team and also conduct interviews as your partner  in the selection process.

Article credit: Patrick Lencioni

The post How To Identify Team Players While Sourcing Fresh Talent appeared first on Pinnacle People Solutions.

Though work from home (WFH) or working from remote locations (WFRL) is in existence since the last decade and mostly confined to the IT field, the current pandemic scenario has brought WFH and WFRL to the center stage. With technologies like Zoom, Google Drive, and video chat making WFH and WFRL simple to connect and collaborate with online, remote work has become a viable option to every business owner globally.

This new scenario or “new normal”, WFH and WFRL  has put a new dimension to the recruitment process and changed the assessment criteria for the existing and fresh talent to assess whether these talents are able to pass the crucial test of WFH or WFRL. It has become important for the interviewer to get equipped with a new set of evaluation parameters and judgement for the interview process.Besides asking usual questions, one needs to equip with a new set of questions to understand how the candidates would succeed in WFH or WFRL situation as the remote working job is different from a traditional job in the office:

We have summarised the following six questions that we feel will help business owners and all those involved in the selection process to understand the candidate’s adaptability to WFH or WFRL environment.

1. How do you plan your day?

By asking this question, you will come to know the candidates’ planning skills and execution style in terms of priority , peak performance hours,and matching to normal working hours vis-a-vis late night or early morning working style.

2. How do you decide about the usage of different communication tools and situations?

By asking this question about the tools and situations, you will know whether the candidate has requisite expertise and priority on what to use and when.

3. What is WFH OR WFRL mean to you?

By asking this question,you will come to know the real purpose of WFH as many candidates want remote work because of the flexibility it allows. You can work from anywhere and at any time of day. You will also come to know whether the candidate prefers a co-working space at home, a coffee shop, the library, and a hotel room. The answer is important to understand the candidates’ fit into the culture of teamwork.

4. How do you keep yourself physically and mentally fit in WFH OR WFRL environment?

By asking this question, you will have an idea of the candidate’s thinking and actual way of keeping physically and mentally fit

5. How do you assimilate the information flow?

By asking this question, you will come to know the candidate’s ability to assimilate and process the information in what and when format.

6. How do you sequence/store / keep track of your file links and tabs on your laptop/desktop?

By asking this question, you will know the candidate’s way of organizing and storing files, keeping track of links, and handling the tab’s issue.

In case you have already incorporated these questions in your selection process, you will have already started getting the benefit of the right fit of candidates.

It will be our pleasure to help you to develop an appropriate strategy for improving your selection process.Please write to us by email on pinnaclepeoplesolutions1@gmail.com to get a call back to help you with the process.

The post Do You Ask These Vital Six Questions to Candidates During The Interview Process? appeared first on Pinnacle People Solutions.

We are sure; by now, you are already familiar with the words or phrases – ‘New Normal‘ and ‘Work from home (WFH)’. Most business owners have also understood the far-reaching effects of Covid in their business working. Many of these effects will fade away during the coming year 2021, once Covid recedes. However, few related to the employees will remain permanently and become a part of the new normal. We will have to integrate these effects into our business growth.

For the benefit of our clients, we have segregated these effects into five broad categories:-

1. Which roles are adding value to the business?

The current pandemic has allowed all business owners to relook at their team’s roles and responsibilities. They have observed that certain roles (positions) are coming to the core business activities and adding to the top line/ bottom line irrespective of work from home (WFH). We need to segregate all roles into core and peripheral categories.

2. Are your current processes still relevant?

Many business owners took a timely decision to move their existing setup into (WFH) set up without introducing significant changes in current processes. In some cases, Business owners had to carry out minor changes, while in few cases, they had to replace these processes with new ones. Now is the time to take stock of processes and streamline them into a new set of procedures.

3. Do you still require the same infrastructure to run your business operations post Covid?

Many organizations have moved their employees into WFH and have found that some of these employees (roles) function to their satisfaction with no significant dip into their productivity. After the lockdown, the majority of these roles may remain WFH category. These arrangements will enable organizations to leverage the increase in productivity and help them reduce infrastructure costs.

4. Why some of these roles need to be on company employees’ muster? Can they be outsourced?

The time has also come to further divide these organizational roles into full-time/ part-time/ freelancer or fully outsourced categories.

5. Does your current pay structure still make business sense?

Finally, organizations are also re-looking at their compensation and remuneration strategies and models. There is a need to evaluate the business impact and contribution of every role; there is also an appreciation that some functions may not need a 5-working-day arrangement. All these considerations will, of course, impact the way organizations look at the pay structure.

Your role as the business head is to anticipate and get ready with these questions. Sustainable answers will initiate business impact and workforce enablement to navigate these challenges.

In case you are ready with answers to the above five questions, Pinnacle People Solutions will help you develop the appropriate strategy to bring the necessary changes.

If, to the contrary, you find difficulty in answering these questions, please write to us on email pinnaclepeoplesolutions1@gmail.com. It will be our pleasure to carry out this exercise and bring sustainable changes to impact your business positively.

The post Are You Ready With An Answer To These Five Questions? appeared first on Pinnacle People Solutions.

A giant ship engine failed. The ship’s owners tried one expert after another, but none of them could figure out how to fix the machine.

Then they brought in an old man who had been fixing ships since he was young. He carried a large bag of tools with him, and when he arrived, he immediately went to work. He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom.

Two of the ship’s owners were there, watching this man, hoping he would know what to do. After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away. The engine was fixed!

A week later, the owners received a bill from the old man for ten thousand dollars.

“What?!” the owners exclaimed. “He hardly did anything!”

So they wrote the old man a note saying, “Please send us an itemized bill.”

The man sent a bill that read:

Tapping with a hammer…………………. $ 2.00
Knowing where to tap……………………. $ 9,998.00

The moral of the story:

*Effort is important, but knowing where to make an effort makes all the difference!

If you happen to get stuck on the issue and don’t have a solution, there is no harm in sharing your problem with us. You never know we might offer the right solution, which we have already offered to our existing clients.

You may write to us to get a piece of advice for striking a hammer at the right place.

The post Have You Heard The Story Of An Old Mechanic With A Hammer? appeared first on Pinnacle People Solutions.

Every business person desires that hopefully, one day, his business will run and grow without him. However, in most cases, it remains a wish only.

As I consult various organizations, I come across multiple types of management styles that could be classified under autocratic, participatory, democratic, or active, depending upon how the organization has built its culture.  There are pros and cons of every management style – let us park this subject for another article.

When we met Ravikant Shetty (name changed), who runs a successful redevelopment project organization, He wanted to  move away from his day to day  responsibilities  and wanted to hand over his operational responsibilities to his senior managers without losing the  focus on his current and future business Funnel.

We told him to implement FOUR C formula which we are sharing with you:

1. Functional clarity:

All employees are clear about the functions responsible for organizational growth, top line, and bottom-line profitability.

2. Position clarity:

All employees are clear about their respective position’s tasks and expectations, so employees know exactly what is expected of them and perform to their potential.

3. Task clarity:

All employees are clear about how to perform the key tasks (Key Result Areas) within each job with the sole aim of delighting the customers

4. Performance clarity:

All employees have the requisite clarity about the performance expectation (Key Performance Indicators) coupled with robust reporting and MIS. His key employees have all vital information available on a 24/ 7 basis for monitoring the performance.

• Do you feel this formula will help you move away from your day-to-day activities and grow your business without you?
• Have you built clarity within your organizational functions?
• Do your employees understand your expectations setting?

Share your responses in the comment section below, and if you would like to pose a new question to me, let us have a chat over the telephone.

The post Your Business Can Grow Without You. Yes, It Can! appeared first on Pinnacle People Solutions.

For the last six months, the entire world is grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic. No one can predict how the world will look like after this epidemic is finally over. Time will only tell what we need to change and at what pace.

Many things are not going to change and will remain constant for many years to come.

There is one organization in the world that focuses only on those things that are not changed or not going to change with their clients. This organization follows this principle continuously for the last 23 yrs and has become number one in the world.

Yes, you are absolutely right,

I am referring to Amazon,which has been focusing only two things which have not changed since 1997,

1. How to shorten the delivery time of their merchandise?
2. How to reduce the cost of their merchandise continuously?

All of us can follow Amazon examples. We can also look inside and find out what are those things which we will not change at our client’s place and how we can add substantial value to our customers by focusing on those things.

We at Pinnacle have found that unleashing employees’ potential will remain a topmost priority at our clients’ place, and for the next one year, we will focus on unleashing the potential of people at the client’s place.

My question to you:

• • What is that one thing or things which you want to continue at your client’s place?

We feel rather than starting with things we don’t know. It is better to start with those things which we are confident about.
We call these things as X-Axis; this will help you fix your Y-Axis, which we don’t know yet.

Please do share with me all those things which you want to continue at your clients’ place. We will be happy to help you with fixing your X-Axis to the Y-Axis. Please write to us pinnaclepeoplesolutions1@gmail.com

The post Fix Your X-Axis While Taking Your Organization Forward appeared first on Pinnacle People Solutions.

You have heard a story of an elephant and four blind persons. When they were told to describe the elephant, each one of them described the elephants based on their touching body parts and then visualizing the elephant.Our experience of family-run business understanding amongst business owners is of similar nature. Though most of them fall into family business category, each one of them describes it quite differently. This wide perception is obvious as most business owners are not fully exposed to different facets and dimensions of family-run businesses; hence their understanding and perception differ.

The obvious question is, what is the correct definition of family-run business?  Having served over 100 family-run enterprises over the last ten years, the nearest simple definition amongst various definitions of family-run business is as under

“A company in which one family owns most of the capital and has total control. The family members are also part of the management and make important decisions.” (Gallo and Veen, 1991)

One of the significant observations of us is the way business is being conducted in family-run businesses.We have observed that most businesses are run by working ‘IN the Business,’ wherein the owners spend much time carrying out operational responsibilities, rather than ‘ON the Business’ where the business owners confine to strategic responsibilities, while the employees carry out tactical and operational responsibilities.

To grow, family-run businesses must make a mindset shift and restructure their organization to a more performance-based structure and the right people management strategies.

Having explained the definition of family run business and the way the business is run, our question to you

Are you falling into the family-run business category, and are you ‘IN the Business’ or ‘ON the Business?

We will be happy to receive your comments and offer a FREE online HR diagnostic audit. You can write to us at pinnaclepeoplesolutions1@gmail.com

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