Daily Archives: November 16, 2005

Some group called Bacons, which describes itself as a media intelligence services group has sent me a 3 page survey on why and how I blog.

Does this mean that they recognize me a ‘media’ ? And they want to (ahem!) understand me?

This bit about “please fill up this survey, I am a big media intelligence service” sounds a bit too extractive. Sure you are. So what?

I notice they have a blog too. Sorry, but I can’t have a conversation with a blog like that!

I got this by email from someone called Paul Denning, Director of Media Relations at MIT (weird, I don’t even know someone at MIT!)

MIT Sloan Assistant Professor of Management Emilio J. Castilla, who specializes in strategic human resource management says:

” The challenge for managers is to use these programs to not only broaden the pool of job applicants, but to continue reaping benefits by keeping people recruited via referrals over time. “When you hire someone who is referred, you are bringing part of the worker’s social network into your company,” said Castilla. “Employers often forget that when a worker is hired using a referral program, that employee becomes linked and even dependent upon other workers in the organization.” Well-managed referral programs can increase productivity and reduce turnover, he said. “When your best employees refer some of their friends, they in turn do some of the screening for you. But while these social connections help companies find applicants and provide difficult-to-obtain and more reliable information on them, what happens if the person doing the referring leaves?

According to our research, the new employee may leave or become less productive if the company does not work to retain the mentor and the other way around. This important social process is often overlooked by managers.”

The answer to that question is what users of the Jobster, Linkedin and Doostang services would also have to answer. The research can be found here. Registration required.

Terry emailed me that workplace democracy is not possible, because there are some rights you give up when you enter the workplace.

And I ended up talking about Semco again.

Semco claims to have implemented workplace democracy.

a Brazilian company that “has no receptionists, secretaries, standard hierarchies, dress codes, or executive perks…a company that lets you set your work hours and even your salary…where the standard policy is no policy.”

Some other points

1. A manager gets interviewed by the team that he would manage.
2. Organizational structures don’t exist.

I’ve often wondered why despite its success, the model was never replicated. Correction: I found an Amazon review where the reviwer claims:

I was assigned to work in Ivory Coast in West Africa. I decided to experiment his model in Africa to see whether his method works. Result. It really works! I delegated all the power to decision making to the staffs who is closest to the environment. Thus, the problem of alignment was easily solved. Not only the organization start working effectively without my hard efforts, but also the motivation of all the staffs skyrocketed. Even some of the staffs who could not read and write, decided to go to school to learn read and write (it is a history in Africa). These staffs also became a proactive staffs by talking on behalf of the language of the organization. The key message of Semler is to freeing everybody from the traditional management by rigid control associated with extrinsic reward system to self control with self ethical value associated with intrinsic reward. In this way he succeeded to skyrocket the motivation of staffs and let them work to search the right direction.

You can find my review of the book here.

According to the FT

Multinational companies establishing low-cost operations in Asia face higher wage costs in China than in India, according to a study of more than 600 companies in the two countries.

Some senior managers and professionals in China earn more than double the rates paid to Indian managers, the study, by Mercer Human Resource Consulting, concluded. However, it said increased demand for highly skilled Indian workers was threatening to mop up much of the available local supply and force up pay rates.

Annual salaries of Indian project managers averaged $10,039 (€8,600, £5,780) compared with $23,409 in China. The pay of Chinese financial analysts, at $13,194, also outstripped Indian salaries of $8,408 for the same job.

The question that companies need to ask themselves is, which country does what kind of work better? Apart from that, the cost of doing business (setup time taken, government bureaucracy, infrastruture bottlenecks) will become important. That, and not wages alone, will determine the kind of work coming into the countries.

As the outsourcing juggernaut climbs higher, the organizations who can do higher value/level of jobs becomes critical.

From the Financial Express:

According to a survey by Monster India, an online recruitment agency, 51% of employees may well be thinking of greener pastures even as they continue with their jobs. With growing options in the job market and a booming economy, more and more people in stable jobs were looking for options outside their organisation.

Of the 20,133 respondents, 51% said they were exploring newer career options. The survey was part of Monster Meter, an ongoing series of online polls to gauge users’ opinion on a variety of topics relating to career and the workplace.

Of course, it’s a little skewed group to do a poll on. Presumably individuals who visit Monster’s website are already inclined to look at other jobs, right? What interests me is, what are the other 49% who visit Monster’s website are looking for. Any guesses? Jobs for friends and family?