Indian HR

by Deanna Hartley | Talent Management
The global nature of business today oftentimes entails overseeing teams comprised of foreign nationalities – a reality that has spawned “Outsourced,” an NBC sitcom that documents the journey of a manager whose department gets outsourced to India.
“I worry about people seeing the show. Because it’s in India, they somehow would think there are different rules in India about managing human behavior – and there aren’t,” said Aubrey Daniels, author of Oops! 13 Management Practices That Waste Time and Money.
The core management principles that enable employees to perform effectively are the same, regardless of geography, he explained. Bosses on shows such as “The Office” and “Outsourced” amuse audiences because they are often clueless as to why they can’t influence their direct reports to behave in certain ways. According to Daniels, this is because they take a one-size-fits-all approach to workforces.
“Any time you try to reinforce everybody with the same thing – whether it’s something you say or something you give them – you’re going to be in trouble, because what’s positive to one may be negative to another,” he said. “In ‘Outsourced,’ there are going to be lots of occasions like that, where the American is going to try to reinforce everybody with ‘steaks [are] on me’ – and that may not go over very well.”
Here are a few tips for managers of global – or even local – teams to improve performance.
1. Learn employees’ positive reinforcers.
“You could pat somebody on the back and not increase whatever they’re doing, so that would tell you that’s not a reinforcer,” Daniels said. “We need to look at behavior to see the impact of what we do. If I’m going to have a good relationship with you, then I’m going to have to pay attention to you; I’ve got to watch your behavior and how you respond to things I do.”
In an organization, this may entail setting up candid one-on-one meetings with direct reports.
“We sit down with [the employee] and say, ‘Tell me what’s important to you, what you’re trying to accomplish here. Why did you come to work here? What do you want to accomplish for yourself short term and long term?’” he said.
Doing so not only empowers the individual to contribute his or her best to the organization, but also helps managers develop a good working relationship with direct reports.
2. Pinpoint behaviors that add value.
Throwing out ambiguous statements, such as ‘We want you to take more initiative,’ doesn’t serve to improve employee performance, Daniels explained.
“We want to determine what drives the result we’re trying to accomplish, and we find over and over again that managers don’t know what it is, as basic as that seems,” he said.
For this reason, it would behoove managers to pinpoint behaviors that add value and be specific when communicating them to their direct reports. In a sales situation, it may be setting up meetings with prospective customers, writing proposals, etc.
3. Graph employee progress.
Graphic feedback – or feedback plotted on a graph or chart of some sort – allows managers to track the progress of individuals or groups, Daniels explained.
“The value of a graph is you can see small changes in behavior, which allows you many more opportunities to reinforce them than if you’re not tracking it,” he said. “Other people seeing that can comment on how well you’re doing, so you can get social reinforcement as well as reinforcement from the boss.
For example, graphically tracking the frequency of customer contact in a given week may help a bank strengthen its relationship-banking efforts.
4. Reinforce behaviors that contribute to progress.
Tangible business results aren’t immediately obvious. For example, it may take the aforementioned bank a month to begin to detect an increase in sales.
“The problem is, if you didn’t get some form of recognition for the effort you were making in contacting the customers, then in four weeks your effort would diminish because the results are lagging the behavior,” Daniels said. “If you know that contact with customers is going to increase sales, then your job as a manager or supervisor is to make behaviors get enough reinforcement to keep them going until such time as they begin to see [an] increase in sales.”
5. Celebrate results.
Managers typically commend their teams for a job well done by calling them together, telling them how well they performed and providing something tangible, such as cash incentives or time off.
“We talk about a celebration as an opportunity to relive an accomplishment,” he said. “The celebration should be employees talking about what they did to create that result. That’s their reinforcement because it allows management to see how smart they are, how hard they worked, how difficult it was, etc.”