Performance Appraisal

Hello Once Again,

There is a lot going at the end of the year. Performance appraisals are in process in HR. I was not part of the ranking process. That happened some days ago, however, now I see how the manager and employee try to find a common ground and convince each other. What is interesting to see is that how managers think that their employees are either weak or not very good but the employees claim that are superb and they have done a good job. According to my observations there are two basic problems. First, the managers did not inform their subordinates about their performance during the year. Now when it is end of the year, the employees do not accept it. Second, there is no proper development plan in place based on which the employees may receive training and upgrade their skills. They claim that no one told them and no one trained them and to some extend their right. However, ultimately it is their responsibility to do their job to the highest standard and they should try to gain new skills. Anyways, it was another experience.    

Regards,

Javid

Five Levels of Leadership

Hello,

Today, I want to talk about a book that I have been reading lately. The book is called Five Levels of Leadership and the author is John Maxwell.

T

he book divides the leadership into five levels. First one is Position and the books states that people follow you because they have to. The second one is Permission and the book says people follow you because they want to. The third one is Production and it states that people follow you because you have done something for the organization. The fourth one is People Development and at this level people follow you because of what you have done for them. The fifth and the last one is Pinnacle and here people follow you because of who you are and what you represent.

According to Maxwell (2011), “Leadership is a process, not position” (p. 4). The book emphasizes on the fact that leadership should be continuous. It is not a goal but the way to your goal so it should be followed as a process. The book also mentions that you have to start from level one with a person and you will reach to level five. The book also states that could be on different level of leadership with different people. This is very interesting. According to this book, if you are at level 3 of leadership with one person it does not guarantee you to have the same level with another person. You have to work from the start with the other person so you again reach to a higher level with that person. I believe this is very true about leadership.

Wish you good reading,      

Regards,

Javid

Interview

Hi,

Today I attended an interview. I was sitting in the panel as interviewer and was given one question to ask but my main task was to see how the interviews are conducted.

The starting questions of the interviews were almost the same- qualification, background, interest and etc. However, there were some tough questions asked in the middle of the interview. During these questions the panel was also asking technical questions and was trying to find out if the candidate is technically qualified. Later, HR person was asking about candidate’s vision of his career and how he plans to achieve them. Finally, the primary salary negotiation was performed.

It was amazing to see how candidates were responding and how the panel was later evaluating them.  What the panel mostly liked was if the candidates seemed sincere, frank and clear about what they are doing or what they want to do. They were also checking if the candidate fits into the organization. This was a tough call and frankly, I could not understand it properly. But the panel was weighing it.

I like it.     

Regards,

Javid

Experience in HR

Hello All,

I have started working on some HR related stuff for the project. The first thing I had to do was to look into the job descriptions of the various positions.

There were so many job descriptions that I looked into but there was one interesting- procurement officer. This is position was announced three times but was still vacant. I looked into the activity list and it seemed fine. Then I observed the competencies, skills and qualifications required. I thought it was fine but the director informed me that there is something wrong with this part. After some investigation, we found that the qualifications announced in the job description are tougher than the market status. The qualification wanted Bachelors in Economics or public administration with five years of experience in the related field. Moreover, the salary that is offered for this position is not attractive compared to the qualification announced. Because of this small error, the position is vacant for the last seven months. Now we changed the qualification and re-announced the position. I am hopeful that we will get a good candidate this time.

What we learn in the book is not always sufficient. We need to look into more details.    

Regards,

Javid

Follow Up on Team Building Activities

Hey there,

Follow up on the team building activities.

We had a trip to a nearby province. It was properly arranged to have fun and get together. The idea was to know each other a little personally and also have fun. The finance team collected the money from each participant for the trip and assigned a trip coordinator. The coordinator made the plan.

We started our trip early in the morning. We reached a village near a river, called Daronta, and ate our lunch there. This place is famous for its fish so we all ordered fish. Later, we went to main city. We found a good play ground and started playing cricket and soccer. We were playing until evening. In the evening we went to a swimming pool and enjoyed swimming. Afterwards, it was time for dinner. We went to a local restaurant which was also built across a river. The restaurant was famous for a dish, called Karai, which is close to fried lamb. After the dinner, we had tea- a very typical Afghan drink. The point is that we drunk a lot of tea, almost three glasses each, and chit-chat during drinking. It was amazing. All the project team was there and everyone was laughing and cracking jokes. We stayed for the night there and the next day we went to see some of the famous places in the city. We came around 9:00 PM.

Today, we watched the photos of the trip on a projector. We all sat together during lunch and shared some of the memories. It was really great.

I can feel how effective is these type of team building activities. The personnel are working nicely with each other and can ask for help without hesitance. I am sure there will be increase in their productivity as well. 

Regards,

Javid