The MSSW-SIFE Story – Recreating lives...

The association of MSSW with SIFE reached it's peak last year when my college was selected as the finalist of the National SIFE tournament. It was a proud moment for all of us in college and the core team of SIFE did a fabulous job. It was not merely about touching lives, it was beyond that. It was all about recreating lives. I once again thank and congratulate last year's SIFE team for their sincerity and selfless work.

But even this year the students of MSSW will have a lot to cheer about. The new SIFE team consisting of Prof Jayanthi Peter,HOD, Dept of MA-HRM,MSSW[Faculty Incharge]; Hadeeja S; Rakesh Kumar Patil; Madhumitha Sowndararajan;Prashanti. T; Arvind Srikantan; Adline Sophia;Sowmya Mathews;Harish.S;Tanvir Ahmed are working very hard towards multiple projects that could generate a lot of benefits and goodness in various target communities.



I pray and wish that the projects are a huge success. I would like to share a snapshot of this year's projects undertaken by the SIFE core team along with the support of everyone in MSSW.

Following is a write up mailed to me by my good friend and SIFE core team member 'Madhumita Soundarajan':

The Madras School of Social Work, as a pioneering institution in professionalizing social service, has undertaken several initiatives to promote the feeling of community development amongst students. One such quintessential initiative has been the SIFE.

SIFE stands for Students in Free Enterprise. As an NGO, headquartered in USA, it aims at creating self sustainability in a chosen community, by partnering with students from various educational institutions.

Thus, it is synonymous to the saying, “A meal today is for now; A skill today is forever".

MSSW is one such prestigious college to have been partnering with SIFE.

Every year, the MSSW-SIFE team undertakes a new project, targeting at a different community than before. It is interesting to note that students, as a part of this initiative, play the role of facilitators, thereby ensuring the non-dependency of the community on anybody else. This year, the new initiative undertaken has been named “Project Vidiyal”

This project targets the women community who are tsunami victims. The project comprises approximately of 40 women, across different locations in Chennai such as Thiruvanmiyur, Royapuram and Pazhaverkadu. These women belong to the age group 20 years to 40 years.

The community at Thiruvanmiyur (Identified by The TamilNadu Women’s Collective) has been trained on various skills such as candle making, embroidery and artificial flower making. They have also been trained on soft skills such as team building and entrepreneurial skills. The products done by them were also displayed for sale in one of the college festivals. It is to be noted here is that, these women have also been given certificates for undergoing the training program. This authenticity will help them get a loan in future.

The community at Royapuram and Pazhaverkadu are involved in the making of office stationery items (such as notepads, files, pen stands etc, as shown in the picture) made of eco friendly materials such as recycled paper. These women are paid Rs.15 per hour as labour charges for the work they do. The sale proceeds from the products are ploughed back into the business again.

The sife team has been helping the community in active selling by displaying the products in a lot of college fests. From the last week of February till date, the sales proceeds has reached Rs.38,000. The Sife team also helped the community get bulk orders from colleges and corporates.

As a future course of action, the MSSW-SIFE team is currently involved in active branding for the products and in the process, also preparing a product catalogue that could be used by the community representatives on their sales front, for marketing and publicity purposes.

Apart from Project Vidiyal, the team is also involved in the active monitoring of their last year’s sustainable venture, “Project Suyam”. This project focusing on the farming community, is now supporting around 50 families. The project, on one hand, targets a community in Tamabram, involving the cultivation of Vincea Rosea, a drug that is widely used for Cancer treatment. On the other hand, the venture also extends to the outskirts of the city in Melmaruvathur where various leguminous crops such as groundnuts are also being cultivated. These are regularly put through crop rotation to ensure the fertility of the soil. The team proudly conveys that this project has already become sustainable and is continuing to be run in association with Mr. P.S Nathan, Farm Director, Apoorva Farms, Kayapakkam, Kanchipuram Dist, TamilNadu

Exciting speakers for SHRM Annual Conference 2010

I received the invite for 62nd SHRM Annual Conference to be held between 27-30 June, 2010 in San Diego, California . What seems most impressive to me is the list of prolific speakers which will include:

• Al Gore - Former Vice President of the United States Nobel Laureate
  
• Steve Forbes – President and Chief Executive Officer of Forbes and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes magazine
  
• Dave Ulrich – Professor of Business at the University of Michigan and a partner at the RBL Group
• Marcus Buckingham – New York Times best-selling author and business visionary
• Dr. Fons Trompenaars – World Authority on Managing Cultural Diversity

The invite also mentions that there would be 150 concurrent sessions during the conference [WOW!!!!!]. It also promises insights on topics like:

• Talent Management
• Strategic HR
• Global Human Resource

The probability of me attending the conference is really thin as I would be joining my new work at that point of time. However, I really hope that the next SHRM Annual Conference takes place in India and I would surely attend it :-)

For further information on the Annual Conference please visit http://annual.shrm.org/my-focus-is-on/recertification-preparation#global .

You can also mail at shrmindia@shrm.org

HR business partnering....

This week during the NHRD meeting, the theme was 'HR Business Partnering'. Even though this topic has been discussed in length in various forums and books, yet it seems very intricate. Has HR become a proper business partner yet??? Of course not in many companies.

Hence it makes sense to discuss this further in forums. Indeed we had a great time listening to Mr D Harish, Leadership Consultant & Executive coach and Tarun Kochhar, CEO, Carpediem .

A few thoughts by Mr D Harish:

• In order to make a transition from HR expert to a HR business partner there has to be a shift from providing answers to asking the right questions, analyzing to synthesizing, controlling to collaborating, supply expertise to supply insights.
• The HR business Partner's job is to Build Trust, Listen for Insights, Providing Personal Guidance, Aligning to the agenda.
• The way forward for the partnership is through contextual business awareness, professional mutuality, passionate commitment and value consciousness.
• A few competencies that would really help the HR business partners are functional knowledge, business acumen, consulting skills and coaching approach.
  

He also mentioned how the HR business partner must have 'selfless confidence' to have the courage to speak what is right for the company's long term goal.

Mr Tarun Kochhar gave insights towards two successful cases: Sathyam Cinemas and Isteel.
He explained how in these two companies the HR team plays a very inclusive role towards achieving the organizational vision. The cases were simple to understand and made a lot of impact on me because I could relate to them especially the Sathyam Cinemas case.

For example: It was observed that Sathyam Cinemas had a major amount of their audience among the 'teenager women' category but their security was a concern initially. However, the HR team recognized this and recruited many more security guards with the right prerequisites [they had strong appearance with pleasant personality]. Also a lot of thought was invested on finer details like their grooming and uniform colour[Bright so that the teenager women could easily spot them and feel secure]. The business leaders were also fully supportive of this because the HR could articulate the need for recruiting the security guards by aligning to the business vision of creating 'magical moments'.

People skills learnt from a 'Marketing Maven'...

Tonight I had a great dinner with my dad's friend who is the Director [Marketing] of a well known Indian company. Not only was the Pasta very delectable, even the scintillating conversation was full of learning.

During the conversation I came to know that he had done exceedingly well in his prior marketing assignments. However, he attributed his success in marketing assignments to his people skills and deep understanding about the business.

Some of my key learning were:

• Business ownership is the real key. The business ownership should be shared by each and every soul in the organization. Even a company car driver who is well aware & appreciative of the business [and it's vision] would influence the client to a great extent during the journey from the airport to the client's hotel. He would be aware of the fact that he is transporting a business client who is capable of adding a lot of value in the business [and he is not just a mere passenger].

• It's important that business leaders recognize and accept that they cannot know everything about business. If the leader compels his domain experts to make seemingly intelligent nods to whatever he says then he would never really allow his domain experts to truly express their views and ideas.

• For personal success at work one should first listen to others with a very keen intent, do his work passionately, be an exceptional team player and be careful enough to market his contribution to the right people in a nice & ethical way [Life at work is not like a cricket match in IPL where you are constantly appreciated or criticized for your results delivered as well as your sincere efforts].

Towards the end of the dinner I understood one more facet about myself. It's that a decent pasta and an incredible conversation can bring the biggest possible smile on my face.