Corporate Governance versus Business Ethics with particular reference to ethics of Human Resource Management

Dear Students,

Often we came across the terms Corporate Governance and Business Ehics and are intrigued by the question whether these two are one and the same or different and more so, what are the ethics relating to Human Resource Management.

The following lines will aptly bear this out:

Corporate governance is most often viewed as both the structure and the relationships which determine corporate direction and performance. The board of directors is typically central to corporate governance. Its relationship to the other primary participants, typically shareholders and management, is critical. Additional participants include employees, customers, suppliers, and creditors. The corporate governance framework also depends on the legal, regulatory, institutional and ethical environment of the community.

Business ethics is a form of applied ethics that examines ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that arise in a business environment.Business ethics can be both a normative and a descriptive discipline. As a corporate practice and a career specialization, the field is primarily normative. In academia descriptive approaches are also taken. The range and quantity of business ethical issues reflects the degree to which business is perceived to be at odds with non-economic social values. Historically, interest in business ethics accelerated dramatically during the 1980s and 1990s, both within major corporations and within academia. For example, today most major corporate websites lay emphasis on commitment to promoting non-economic social values under a variety of headings (e.g. ethics codes, social responsibility charters).

Ethics of human resource management

The ethics of human resource management (HRM) covers those ethical issues arising around the employer-employee relationship, such as the rights and duties owed between employer and employee.

• Discrimination issues include discrimination on the bases of age (ageism), gender, race, religion, disabilities, weight and attractiveness.
• Issues surrounding the representation of employees and the democratization of the workplace: union busting, strike breaking.
• Issues affecting the privacy of the employee: workplace surveillance, drug testing.
• Issues affecting the privacy of the employer: whistle-blowing.
• Issues relating to the fairness of the employment contract and the balance of power between employer and employee: slavery, indentured servitude, employment law.
• Occupational safety and health.

Best wishes,

Prof. D. P. Chattopadhyay
(Globsyn Business School)

Our Lost Resilience

I was talking about the article “Fallen Tomato Cart” by Mr. Subroto Bagchi of Mindtree Consulting, in couple of forums recently as it happened to be the best in recent times for me and I thought about some of the reasons for our lost resilience which the author mentioned, to my understanding is as follows:

1. Lack of early failures – With more employment opportunities and employee benefits being offered in several industries the Gen Y are less prone to failures in life to get their first break and thus are less exposed to the challenges of getting into an air conditioned office, work and take a ride back in an office drop.
   
2. Lack of Support System – With nucleus family setup we are loosing on the Support system these days. I was at the cremation for one of my relative yesterday and what I found was alarming we were just 5-6 of us to take care of his last rites (inspite of the fact yesterday was Sunday!!!) whereas we saw two other cases from comparatively lower middle class family each of them had minimum of 40-50 people to help the bereaved family members. More up in the social ladder less is your support system :).
   
3. Keeping things simple – We completely lost this in our lives!!! We like a shirt but we cannot buy it if it is not branded. We want to see a movie but we cannot if it is not running in a multiplex.
   
4. Plan to enjoy but not enjoy to plan – We need to avoid too much of planning when we are out to enjoy especially on a vacation. Recently I visited Rajasthan for a vacation and my schedule was so tight that at times I felt stressed instead of being relaxed (the main objective of my vacation :) ) Even in business if you have your clients spending 2-3 days with you, the thumb rule for good planning is to plan for 1.5-2 days and keep rest of the time available so that you can accommodate things which may come up in the course of your discussion in the first 2 days (learning from BDG).
   
5. Have the larger pic but enjoy the moments – Long term planning is good but as long it does not stresses you (Learning from Munnabhai MBBS – Jindagi me kitna pal haye is not important, what is relevant is har pal me kitna jindagi haye).
   
6. Social Networking – More people you know around helps you to create your own space which in turns facilitates self motivation (biggest of ALL motivation) The reason you will never find a politician ever feeling depressed or lost even after loosing elections or getting into a scandal :) .

Contributed By:
Mr. Ranjan Sarkar
(Vice President-HR & Corporate Communications)
Acclaris Limited

Click here for the article “Fallen Tomato Cart” by Mr. Subroto Bagchi of Mindtree Consulting (Made available by courtsey & consent of Mr. Ranjan Sarkar)

CLO to CEO????

Organizations these days require people, who can have a very good understanding of the way the business is headed, can comprehend the situation and understand its impact on workforce and adequately train them to deal with the same. All the organizations understand the need for a Chief Learning officer. In most of the big corporate enterprises a CLO is appointed to enhance the overall capability of the workers. The demand for such people has increased rapidly and studies show that duration of CLO’s stay with one organization on an average would be 12 to 18 months.

This exit is not only because of higher demand and more money, there is a positive and negative connation to this phenomena. CLO’s leave sometimes because they are unable to impact the culture of the organization. The C (Chief) in the work CLO is sometimes only for namesake, their role is restricted to that of a training officer. It has been observed that most often there do not have the authority to take decision or to implement it and sometimes unrealistic expectations are placed on them. A learning officer’s job is to see that he trains the people and improves each in their respective job. But they have a limit and cannot influence beyond a certain extent.

The positive side though is that there is headhunting going on to get good CLO’s and anybody who is good at his job can always move to an organization that pays more or offers challenging assignments. Another change that is witnessed is that CLOs are being promoted in the corporate level. This is because of the skills that they have, they can create strong and efficient workforce that can contribute in increasing the productivity of the organization. They can move ahead and become chief operating officers of the organization. In time they can move up and take up the role of a CEO. Even though such opportunities can arise not every CLO is equipped with the skills needed by a CEO. So there is a need for such individuals to engage in activities that would enable them to develop the required skill and also get the necessary qualification and experience that would make it possible for them to take charge of a business enterprise and run it successfully.

Contributed By:
Dr. Shalini S.
(Globsyn Business School - Ahmedabad)

Human Process Laboratory

I would like to share my recent experience of attending a human process laboratory. On the lines of sensitivity training, this lab aimed to make oneself more aware of one's own behavior as well as to become more sensitive to the behavior of the people around you.

I realized how difficult it is for people to touch their real innerself. We have been so tuned to reflecting what the people around us expect that we have really lost touch with our core self. As kids, we are trained to become obedient children; as adults, we are tuned in to do what our family expects at home, friends in the society and boss at the workplace. Somewhere, we become so bogged down by the expectations of the different roles that we forget who we are. We become afraid of looking inside.. to reveal our weaknesses...after all, if others around us come to know of our weaknesses, wont we make ourselves vulnerable? We learn to avoid and avoid till the time we forget that there is another aspect of our personality waiting to be explored.

In the mechanical race for materialistic things, we somewhere forget that unless if have the courage to accept our weaknesses, we can never address them and become better.

This lab helped the participants to understand themselves better, why do people behave in certain ways, why do people respond to selective things.....

It was a self-revealing experience...
I wish we can have more and more people doing such labs so that we can have a better society around us with better organizations to work for.

Dr Meenakshi Khemka
Globsyn Business School

What corporates look for from B-school students?

The fast paced growth witnessed by the Indian economy in the last decade has also seen a proliferation of B-Schools across the country. While this has made management education more accessible to a large majority of students, it has its downside as well. Except for well established B-Schools, with a reputation for both academics and knowledge delivery infrastructure, a large number of B-Schools have mushroomed to cash into the boom that the education sector is witnessing. The boom is also fast ensuring that a graduate degree is no longer the de-facto entry criteria into the corporate world and a management degree is increasingly becoming essential to achieve a toehold on the career ladder.

With an increasingly large number of management graduates being released into the market each successive year, corporations are now having to graduate to more prudent and researched hiring techniques to identify and segregate talent that they propose to hire. With the replacement of ‘managerial capitalism’ with ‘shareholder capitalism’, the traits that are being looked for in management graduates is also being looked more critically and for alignment to the growing acceptance of a 1970 declaration by Milton Friedman that "the sole concern of (American) business should be the maximization of profit". The traits that are being looked into in fresh management hires can be divided into:

a. Domain Skills and Competencies
b. Social Skills
c. Human Attributes

Domain related skills/competencies form an important part of what corporations today look for. With a shift in focus from ‘labour cost’ to ‘labour quality’, the need to identify the right ‘quality’ talent is crucial, since in this age of extreme competitiveness, the cost of error rework is extremely high with the added pressures of handling consumer complaints, loss of potential revenues and cross selling opportunities, regulatory risks etc. While this is true, corporations today are also valuing people with multi-skills and with the ability to multi-task. To work across domains with the same rigour. Thus someone with super-specialisation in only one key area may be given a miss for a person who has demonstrable ability to work across domain areas.

Apart from domain related skills one of the most looked into aspect from the social/human skills perspective is ‘attitude’. By ‘attitude’, corporations typically mean the ability to identify with and ‘live’ core values of the organization such as respect for others, being customer-driven, etc. Many corporations have concluded that it is too difficult and costly to try to change the attitudes of adults. As a result, they release those unable to work and manage according to the organization's values and replace them with those who can.

Other social skills of importance, other than attitude, that is looked into includes commitment to work, the ability to work as part of a team as well as independently, ability to motivate and lead teams, and an abiding commitment to the company’s core value system. Research has also shown corporations favourably regard traits such as trustworthiness, caring, humility, and capability in their potential hires.

In the end it is all about successful image management. How well do you sell yourself? That’s the question that you must ask. But don’t be fooled. While packaging may be important, customers (read recruiters) will quickly see through the outer package and get to know if you are holding out a false promise. Successful impression management can generate a number of important benefits, including career advancement, client satisfaction, better work relationships (trust, intimacy, avoiding offence), group cohesiveness etc.

In order to create a positive professional image, impression management must effectively accomplish two tasks: build credibility and maintain authenticity. When you present yourself in a manner that is both true to self and valued and believed by others, impression management can yield a host of favourable outcomes for you and the organization/school that you represent.

Contributed By:
Supratim Kar
(Manager - New Business)
Globsyn Group

Inner Peace

There once was a king who offered a prize to the artist who would paint the best picture of peace. Many artists tried. The king looked at all the pictures. But there were only two he really liked, and he had to choose between them.

One picture was of a calm lake. The lake was a perfect mirror for peacefully towering mountains all around it. Overhead was a blue sky with fluffy white clouds. All who saw this picture thought that it was a perfect picture of peace.

The other picture had mountains, too. But these were rugged and bare. Above was an angry sky, from which rain fell and in which lightning played. Down the side of the mountain tumbled a foaming waterfall. This did not look peaceful at all. But when the king looked closely, he saw behind the waterfall a tiny bush growing in a crack in the rock. In the bush a mother bird had built her nest. There, in the midst of the rush of angry water, sat the mother bird on the nest--in perfect peace.

Which picture do you think won the prize? The king chose the second picture. Do you know why?

"Because," explained the king, "peace does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work. Peace means to be in the midst of all those things and still be calm in your heart. That is the real meaning of peace."

"When Life gives you a thousand reasons to cry, show that you have a million reasons to smile."

Contributed By:
Mary Verghese
(Manager HR - Globsyn)

Some Motivating & Inspiring Quotes

"When two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as he wants to be seen, and each man as he really is." Michael De Saintamo.

"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much." Helen Keller.

"Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success." Henry Ford.

"When your team is winning, be ready to be tough, because winning can make you soft. On the other hand, when you team is losing, stick by them. Keep believing." Bo Schembechler.

"Individuals play the game, but teams beat the odds." SEAL Team saying.

"The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime." Babe Ruth.

"If a team is to reach its potential, each player must be willing to subordinate his personal goals to the good of the team." Bud Wilkinson.

"When he took time to help the man up the mountain, lo, he scaled it himself." Tibetan Proverb.

"In order to become a leading home run hitter, a batter must be surrounded by good hitters, otherwise, the pitchers will 'pitch around' him. Likewise, many successful people became that way from being on a good team." Laing Burns Jr.

"A group becomes a team when all members are sure enough of themselves and their contributions to praise the skill of others." Anonymous.

"Teamwork is neither "good" nor "desirable." It is a fact. Wherever people work together or play together they do so as a team. Which team to use for what purpose is a crucial, difficult and risky decision that is even harder to unmake. Managements have yet to learn how to make it." Peter F. Drucker.

"It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed." Napoleon Hill.

"If we were all determined to play the first violin we should never have an ensemble. Therefore, respect every musician in his proper place." Robert Schumann.

"Finding good players is easy. Getting them to play as a team is another story." Casey Stengel.

"Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down." Oprah Winfrey.

Contributed By:
Rupee RoyChodhury
(Senior HR Executive - IBM Daksh)
GBS Alum