One late night, while walking near a highway with my friend, I came across a visually impaired man trudging in the opposite direction. He was making different rhythms with his walking stick. I hadn’t even walked 20 meters past him, that a feeling of pity took over me and I couldn’t stop myself from wanting to help him out somehow. So, I went up to him and asked him, “Sir can I help you reach your place?” He replied, “Yes, there is a small pothole at the beginning of my street. Can you help me pass through it? From there I can go on my own”. And then we helped him pass that road. This seemingly normal episode triggered a chain of thoughts in my mind that was to stay for a long time with me. The first thought on my way back home was an obvious one, about how cruel nature is. By the time I reached home the disorder in nature was running through my mind. Days past this episode I happened to watch a Tamil movie called “Peranbu.” The movie talks about the struggles of a single parent, Amudhavan, in bringing up his daughter, who has cerebral palsy. The movie was thought provoking and made me question how we see life. It actually made me feel blind that I wasn’t seeing life or nature the way it’s supposed to be seen. And I was again thrown back to the question “What is order and what is disorder”? But this time the movie had left me with an answer.

The definition of order and disorder is framed by us. We humans assume that order is something that the majority of people have or something that’s easily found in the lives of many, while any slight deviation is labeled a disorder. If the majority of people are visually challenged then that would be an order. So the order and disorder are created by humans based on the ubiquity of anything. In nature’s creation, there are no orders or disorders. There are no superiors or inferiors. Everything is unique in nature’s design. And the most significant beauty of nature is also the uniqueness in everything. But people like us who are brought up in an environment that measures everything on the same scale struggle to admire the beauty of deviation, admire people with uniqueness, and even admire oneself. By contradicting nature, we developed a net of ethics, morals, and civilization all bundled up as a dome to hide ourselves from our true selves. And that’s why when the human is contradicting nature, he tends to lose his peace. After this takeaway from the movie, I came to a realization that during that moment of helping the blind man I was actually feeling pity for the uniqueness of that person’s situation, his inability to have what most of us do. But should uniqueness be pitied just because we’re brought up to see it as a loss and not as a distinction?

Nature always tries to maintain a balance. I had an abundance of sight and the other one was short of sight. In this case, I was merely a tool by nature to maintain the balance. From this I understood that fulfilling the balance in nature makes one happy and others too i.e. living in accordance to nature, not contradicting it. After all, it’s the least we could do for nature, our provider. This is not to say that we shouldn’t come forward to help anyone with uniqueness. But we should conquer the feeling of commiseration before we can help out in a way that matters, because ultimately all of us irrespective of our differences are living at the mercy of nature. And nature’s balance sheet doesn’t leave out deficits.

Image source: Reuters

Recently concluded COP-26 at Glasgow and G-20 summit at Rome saw the congregation of World leaders after more than two years. The agenda at hand was Climate Change and their reluctance to commit towards a stringent plan to face this Challenge.

There was a clear absolution of responsibility from the so-called “Developed World” and shifting the burden towards developing countries. This absence of policy directives needed to combat Climate Change is as much of a business problem as it is Environmental. Our current economy is entwined with Climate change exacerbating actions, and decoupling it would need innovative thinking as well as Institutional support and incentives. The current plan of passing blame and shirking responsibility is only conducive to Status Quo.

There is a need for a complete transformation and reconstruction of the economy with sustainability in mind. All of this calls for strong leadership with clear directives, which can identify the opportunities that corporations and communities can build on.

If the problem wasn’t already gargantuan, the limited time makes it seem almost unsolvable. But as Winston Churchill rightly said “Never let a crisis go to waste”. Hence, the world, especially the leadership needs to seize the moment and work on solutions, instead of merely WISHING THE CRISIS AWAY.

Bunty was walking down the street when he stumbled upon an advertisement for a house on sale. Now, Bunty isn’t the one who pays much attention to ads, but what caught him off-guard was that it was his house! He ran back home and told his parents all about it. To his surprise, they said they were the ones who put up the advertisement.

“Why didn’t you tell me first?” Bunty exclaimed.

No one wants to be in the same painful position as Bunty, certainly not your employees. A happy and satisfied employee base is essential for an organization to flourish. The key to achieving this is communication, and Internal PR takes care of just that.

What exactly is Internal PR? The Public Relations Society of America defines public relations as “a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” Internal PR refers to not just your employees but everyone who has a role in your organization.

It should be a vital aspect of every organization’s communication strategy because it’s just as important as external PR. Public relations isn’t just about what everyone else outside your business thinks about you. It is about what people within the organization believe too.

As organizations expand, it gets challenging to make every employee feel involved. The senior management needs to establish sharp lines of two-way communication within the organization to overcome this challenge. The process involves readily listening to your employees and addressing their issues. Sharing business information also makes employees feel that they are valuable to the organization.

All these are important pieces of the puzzle of Employee Branding. Your employees can be your best ambassadors or your worst critics. The choice is yours!

The pandemic of the century as its been called now, which sprung at a local seafood market in Wuhan, China last year, has now brought the whole world to a halt. According to the International Labor Organization, nearly 300 million or one out of six youth will be jobless, as cities around the world go into lockdown to halt the spread of the lethal virus. Scientists around the world are racing against time to develop a vaccine, which usually takes years and sometimes decades before it can be administered at a mass level. The broader concurrence is that we are at least a year and a half away from a COVID vaccine, which can be used to inoculate people at a country or state level. The idea of herd immunity is still farfetched as it fared terribly in the United Kingdom. For a country like India with 1.3 billion people, we are looking at infecting close to 600 million people for them to develop antibodies and be competent enough to stop the spread at a community level; with our patchy health infrastructure, this is a price we cannot pay.

As the countries around the world realize the economic cost of locking down cities – which cost India close to 14 lakh Crores (4% of GDP) in revenue and has plummeted our GDP growth to the lowest since 1972, the consensus in the South Block (Finance Ministry) seems that if you want people to deal with the virus at the community level – it’s high time you allow them to exist with it and learn themselves. Lockdown 4.0 ended on 31st May, and now we are in ‘Unlock 3.0’ the last of three staggered exit stages. With the cases crossing the 22 lacs mark and deaths around the 45,000-mark, there are plenty of negatives to look for, however there has been some hope in despair as well. We take a look at them here.

• The ever-evolving startup culture is always about cost-cutting and how to bootstrap a venture, the more you do the better the chances of survival. In my recent interaction with the founder of ‘Nurturing Green’s’, Annu Grover, I could tap that the overall perception amongst the startup circle¹ is that expensive infrastructure and offices are nothing more but trophies, that is a testament to your success, but hardly helpful in succeeding again. The majority of the entrepreneurs believe that they will opt for co-working spaces for official meetings and stick to online facilities and provide WFH (Work-from-home) as much as possible. The infrastructure and office expenses form a major chunk of cash outflow, this will improve the operating cost ratio drastically making the startups more appealing to the cautious funders looking at these ratios before investing.
• If ‘Swacch Bharat Abhiyaan’ was all about our sanitation drive to provide each one access to the WASH (Water and sanitation hygiene), the Covid-19 Pandemic has taught us the importance of micro – hygiene which shall not evaporate once we suppress the Coronavirus, as the threat of a new wave shall always loom at large. The basic hygiene like washing hands and ‘do gaj ki duuri – 6 feet safety distance’ won’t just keep Corona at bay, it will also help keep the other underrated diseases like ‘H1N1 – Seasonal influenza’ at a check which according to National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has infected close to one lakh people and cost more than 5 thousand deaths in just the past 5 years (2016-2020) alone. Please refer to figure 1 for India’s cases and deaths over the years because of H1N1.

Figure 1 – Source: NCDC, GOI

¹ This is a conclusion drawn upon the informal discussions that were conducted with entrepreneurs to tap their views on the pandemic.

• The environment front, Covid-19 has done what we as individuals never could, improved the quality of our environment multi-folds. However it is too early to celebrate and naïve to believe that Government’s and organization would adhere to the current norms in future, as suggested by United Nations, this is a double-edged sword as more and more funds are now being directed at war footing to the health sector, secondary sectors like pollution controls will see their war chests dry up also once the virus is suppressed at a manageable level the Govt. is expected to go all guns blazing to make up for the job losses by boosting the economy with little regard to the environment as public perception on economic growth wins elections and not environment quality. However, we can still rejoice in our indirect success for the time being.
• Lastly, the psychological front with the majority of the private sector workers engaged in working from home, the family interaction, and social love is at an all-time high. Mental health has been an area that has always been underrated for one or the other reason. As more and more family members interact with each other, spend time together and share problems, achievements the resultant feeling of attachment will reduce depression multi folds at all levels, and improve the mental health. The feeling of content and not chasing overzealous goals at the cost of physical health are expected to go out. There has been an increased emphasis on the importance of nutritional intake as well, as people realize the importance of a healthy immune system, health products are seeing a massive surge in growth.

As we learn to live with coronavirus and it becomes a way of life for us with each passing day, the importance of looking at the brighter avenues can’t be overlooked, we as human beings always need a hope to cling to, till the scientists find a cure or a vaccine how about we keep the positivity high, after all, there are always some positives among the negatives of each obstacle that the human race has faced.

As I type this, I can hear a gentleman shouting at the top of his voice on one the most-watched Indian News channel (that’s what they call themselves), and my dad glued to the television, taking in all the wisdom earnestly. Before you jump to any conclusions, I must tell you that it’s not a piece of Breaking News being reported with all that zeal and enthusiasm. It’s the same old amalgamation of COVID, religion, statistics, and blame that they were discussing yesterday, and the day before that (and the one before that…).

Most news headlines nowadays make me wonder, “Whatever happened to journalism?” I agree that a part of the job description is to point out where things are not working correctly. It makes the society aware and well-functioning, or does it? Is it true that society will function well if it only knows what is going wrong? Isn’t it equally important to focus on what can be done to progress from there, and how can we do better? Adding information about where things have become better is only essential for societal welfare, it will also make the press depict society more accurately.

Most of the news that is presented to us is based on a “victim-attacker” framework. Let’s take the ongoing crisis and its impact on the labor class. The poor fellows who are forced to walk kilometers without proper food and sleep on tracks are obviously in a terrible situation. But what happens when the journalists think of them only as victims? They tend to design their reporting in a particular manner by working on blind angles. Pointing out that the condition is horrifying and helpless is one thing, and entirely designing the report around it is a whole other story. What the news is tacitly doing nowadays is a form of marking and tagging – victims face hardships, attackers take advantage, politicians fight and disagree, reporters blame, religion defeats rationality… and many more. What it does to the viewers is that people tend to have blind-angles in their view of the world. They form images in their head and then look around for evidence to confirm their biases. Most viewers watch the news that aligns with their blind-sided thought process, and hence the so-called news channels keep re-heating serving the same dish with slightly different garnish every day. I don’t understand how someone can be so focussed on TRPs that they forget about the enormous responsibility they carry.
What I am suggesting is some constructive journalism where the news, rather than revolving around conflicts and negativity, becomes solution-focused. If the reports are talking about a problem, they should also try to cover the potential solutions. Instead of playing blame-games and calling them debates, the channels should be facilitating more productive discussions amongst the decision-makers. Now that everything is locked-down, journalism has become important more than ever before. I think it’s high time to add some positive and constructive elements to it and make sure that even if it can’t mitigate the situation, it doesn’t cause the societies to break down either.

Yesterday, while helping my sister out making chapatis for dinner, I suddenly got a sense of complacency. It was that feeling of becoming an utterly responsible woman who can manage official work and simultaneously help out with household stuff. It was the day when I understood how difficult it is for a responsible woman to manage everything, keeping aside, and not discussing, married working women’s responsibilities (as it is beyond comparison). So it is tough. For a few of you, this might not seem something that difficult to achieve. But for me, it was a milestone. Handling more than one task simultaneously has never been my thing because I always believed in doing one thing at a time and giving my complete best to it. But this B-school experience kept adding feathers of different kinds in my cap. And the first stepping stone for me here was to learn and manage to be multi-functional at the same time. We learn a lot more things during this journey of our beautiful life, but we get very few opportunities to make use of those learnings in real life. I think COVID-19 has given us all that.

“Time,” “Situation,” “Crisis”- these are a few subjective terms which have no definite ending. No one knows about it, and neither anyone can predict it. The only thing we can do is keep ourselves prepared, but again, the level of preparedness is another debatable topic. So, how much should we be prepared? Can we ever be fully equipped in the future after facing what we already had, during the past few months? Well, the answers to these questions are still being researched and studied upon by the best minds around the world. It is the hope that makes us keep going during these critical times- the hope that this eventually will open all those dimensions which were not even though of before, the hope of moving towards a better tomorrow. I know this might sound a little philosophical, but as told by Martin Luther King Jr- “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”

A few days back, I saw on the news a woman naming her newborn as COVID. This hit me hard. I am no one to question a mother’s love for her child, but what worried me more was how could we give such importance to something that doesn’t warrant it, at least in this manner? And I really feel that the misdirected attention we have given to this entire situation has made us scared, weak, and pessimistic about our future.

So, instead of looking at what sectors and economy will get impacted by the effect of COVID-19, looking at what new changes it has brought and appreciating those changes for good should be our way of coping with the effects of this pandemic. The beauty of nature that we all got to enjoy during this lockdown, getting time to spend with your whole family which was only possible during weekends (that also was never sufficient enough as the half of weekend goes by in sleeping our stress off, from the weekday’s hard work we have put in).

Answer this question seriously; have you ever thought of learning and doing what you are learning and doing now ever before? NO, right, or even if you have thought about it, you would not have done it yet because of innumerable reasons- “time,” being the most important one.

The essence of time is something we have never realized until it passes by, and then we complain about it. But now, due to this unasked “situation,” the process has reversed. We have sufficient time to realize its essence and set our targets accordingly, but still, we complain. I will not blame anyone for this, as it is a part of human psychology to complain about everything, and I being the master of that, realize this quite well. But I believe that cherishing this situation at times has made us realized that the entire world stands united against COVID-19. Following social distancing by being at home, quarantining ourselves for 14 days in case of detection, clanging utensils & clapping together for 5 minutes, lighting candles and diyas for 9 minutes, these all are the instances which show that we have proved that we know how to keep ours, and our caretakers’ morale high, even in this time of crisis. There is always some positive that we could take out from the negatives, as even a basic mathematics rule says that two negatives can make a positive, we just need to look for that positive.
Header Image Credit: Link

As the severity of the lockdown is decreasing gradually, several businesses are coming back to life, with social distancing being the new norm. This has induced changes in all elements of the business. These changes will create a significant impact on the survival and longevity of the company depending on the action taken by leaders. Change is inevitable due to the dynamic nature of the marketplace, but it occurs gradually over time, whereas the recent economic conditions demand a sudden transformation that can cause upheaval, and hence pre-planned transition is much needed.

A vast set of these responsibilities falls on the shoulders of the HR managers. Companies will have to become employee-oriented, where priority is given to maintaining an employee’s physical and mental health.

Operational Policies –

Should the companies promote work-from-home post COVID-19? Is WFH an advantage in disguise in terms of saving infrastructure costs? Though this pandemic has accelerated the changes in the virtual workplace, better policies regarding work ethics, infrastructural constraints, work-time behavior, performance appraisal and technological barriers will be required for a smooth shift in the new paradigm. Policies needs to be revamped, employee engagement and their ability to bond with their colleagues should be done to maintain their morale.

Human Capital Management –

Is it time to change the organizational culture? Employee-oriented or market-oriented culture? Recently, a study has shown the link between corporate culture, employee commitment, and economic success. Transparency plays a major role in creating trust. Brutal ground realities should not be kept from workers, while at the same time, maintaining hope will be essential to maintain balance – basically a Stockdale Paradox. Workers should also be encouraged for upskilling. Moreover, implementation of employee assistance programme to reduce the risk of infection while re-opening physical workplaces should be done. Employees’ mental health needs to be ensured by providing them trust and direction.

Hiring and Firing –

Should employees be sent on furloughs, layoffs, or retrenchment? Several organizations are preferring furloughs instead of retrenchment as a cost optimization measure. The way in which layoff is done goes a long way in impacting the morale of the existing employees as well. Weak economic cash flows will, unfortunately, accelerate employee termination, but once the struggling industries re-open after the crisis ends, organizations need to be equipped with a re-opening strategy and speed up the recruitment process before the crisis ends. Reviewing the ATS, investment in agile assessment solutions, managing HR Technology, remote hiring, and building virtual hiring technology should be prioritized.

The framework created by Christopher D. Zatzick, Mitchell L. Marks, and Roderick D. Iverson provides choices to companies to get through the layoffs. It is based on two dimensions: Type of downsizing planned, and the company’s existing approach in managing employees.

A steady and calm voice at the top is required to hold people from going astray. A leader should communicate compassion and symbolism with consistency. As the scenario is entirely new, many leaders will be forced to make decisions that are a lot less accurate than before. But nonetheless, decisions made now will have a severe effect on the culture, core values, and, thus, the performance of the company. Whatever was true before may not be true today, with the facts changing on a day-to-day basis. Hence, this situation should be viewed not as a crisis, but as an opportunity to restructure and initiate change in the desired direction.

In the past few months, from sharing memes on CoViD-19, to the time it instilled fear in my heart when I saw empty roads and public places, I think a lot has changed and a lot is going to change soon. Let’s be a part of this global case study encompassing economics, science and politics.

Here we will take a look at how CoViD-19 will affect the 2020, ‘21 and ‘22 batches of MBA.  But before that let’s identify the sectors that have been worst hit by the pandemic – Automotive, Transportation, FMCG, IT, and Banking. The IT sector is mainly dependent on exports and clients like the US, which themselves are impacted badly. Employees in IT will need to develop skills accordingly and improve collaboration while working from home or else they’ll be hit the most.

BFSI is indirectly involved in everything, as falling demands and reduced cash supply will force people to default or reschedule loans. And we have monetary and fiscal policies at hand, but they are also interdependent on a large number of unknown-unknowns including global supply chains, oil prices, and socio-political environment that may take concrete shape after the pandemic is over. We also have some sectors which will bloom like pharmaceuticals, edu-tech startups, and e-commerce firms (provided they ensure high levels of hygiene).

With international organizations and leading consulting firms being marginally positive on the growth of India (because it is a consumption-based economy) than the rest of the world we can see better turnaround in later years.

Now let’s have a look at how the situation will affect the MBA graduates.

The 2020 Batch

The Bad

I believe this batch will face the strongest headwinds. There are already a number of sectors which have announced compulsory unpaid leaves and many are trying to cut down on costs. Given the scenario, I believe that there are chances of current offers being deferred to next year – second rounds of salary negotiations may even take place. This will also involve a major shift in roles and responsibilities as they will get blurred, and due to the economic slowdown, people might have to handle multiple dimensions.

The Good

I think this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the batch to add diversity to their skill sets, which will also help them in the long run, as this is expected to be the worst recession after 1930’s.

The 2021 Batch

Let’s shift the focus on current 2^nd year students. I think the demand for Business Development Executives, Operations Managers and Marketing Professionals will increase and by the time they will start working, things would be much better. But because the sentiments are lower they will have to take the cut in terms of salary expectations and roles. In addition to that, some prominent firms have stopped hiring from the current year, so they may have to compromise on the choice of brand as well.

If the lockdown extends, there can be online classes and exams, a teaser of which we have already seen.

The 2022 Batch

I think by the time 2022 batch comes on-board, most of the effects of this pandemic would have been mitigated, and both the country, as well as the world economy, would be coming back in shape. In that scenario, some normalcy regarding placements can be witnessed. We might also expect better hiring prospects.

Common theme

I believe all these effects can be serious and far-reaching if the pandemic is not handled properly and, as the economy does not work in silos, repercussions could be huge.

This might have given you some idea about the after-effects of this pandemic. Till it recedes, stay safe and stay healthy.

 

 

The Field Immersion Module (FIM) at IIMN is a 3-week long module that allows PGP students to get first-hand experience of how small and medium scale enterprise function, before taking up managerial roles in larger organizations, through summer internship and final placement. These enterprises are from different sectors like manufacturing, agribusiness, government and infrastructure and rural development, and are based in different regions of Maharashtra such as Nagpur, Aurangabad and Nashik. They are either for-profit or not-for-profit organizations. Students are given a chance beforehand to choose their areas of interest. This programme is quite helpful, not only for inexperienced students but also for experienced students who get the opportunity to work in an entirely new domain.

My partner and I started our FIM with NICE Imports, which is a partnership firm and a subsidiary of NICE Software Solutions, located in IT Park, Nagpur. NICE Imports acts as a third party helping in the smooth import process of different grades of waste paper from suppliers outside India to paper mills in India. Since it was a new experience, it was quite surreal for me but on the other hand, I was excited about the new experience.

Before FIM officially started, my partner and I visited the partner organization to learn about our problem statements and discuss their expectations from us. Subsequent to that, we divided our three-week schedule in such a way that we devoted the first few days to understanding the business process followed by the organization. In the next two days, we initiated one-on-one interactions with all the employees to understand the bottlenecks they faced in the current process. The second week was completely dedicated to gaining hands-on experience by working on their software platform and getting a thorough understanding of the documentation they deal with on a daily basis. The last week was much more invested in working out all possible options to remove the bottlenecks we explored through primary and secondary research, and preparation of our final presentations.

While most of us have worked in organizations prior to joining IIMN, obtaining an insider’s perspective into the working of small and medium enterprises was a new learning, that we got from the FIM. It allowed me to apply the knowledge I had gained in the first two terms, to real-life scenarios, and enabled me to draw valuable learnings from it.

I believe that continuous application and testing of the concepts which we learn, enhance our learning experience. I consider myself lucky to be a part of such a learning experience. For my field immersion module (FIM), I worked for a start-up working on onion issues in Nashik. The start-up was headed by a team of young entrepreneurs who have the drive to work on social issues and provide solutions through innovation.

Through my FIM, I got the exposure of the onion crop value chain and the various players involved in it. I got an opportunity to work with a farmer producer organization (FPO), which is offering support to the farmers in the Nashik region by assisting them with the production techniques to be used and also with the procurement of the produce.
While working for the problem statement, I had regular discussions with my partner, and we identified a few markets which can provide multiple revenue options to the farmers. After thorough research, we also proposed a waste management method that is feasible and can add value to the firm and farmers. We also helped the firm with social media promotions and budget estimations.

As the firm I was working for was a start-up, it was operating under a start-up-incubator that had been guiding the firm since its inception. The start-up incubator had a great culture where anyone with a business idea could turn it into a viable product through their guidance and support. It was a great experience for me because of the daily interactions I had with the innovators in the incubator. It ignited a spark in me to work on an idea that I have and turn it into a business solution (which I am currently working on).

As I mentioned in the beginning, FIM has provided me with a platform to apply and test the concepts I had learned in the classroom. It has given me the confidence required to survive in the business world.