Corporate myths: For HR Leaders

Dr.Priya Kalyansundaram, Professor, SIMS

 In this fast-evolving business world, corporates have a multiple challenges. But how they deal with them reveals their eagerness to embrace the future and their desire for real change. New challenges need newer solutions, not reprocessing the old resolutions or “doing more of the same”.

Here are some of the corporate myths to help HR leaders stay ahead.

Higher the degrees better the candidate: Expressing your skills is more important than your degrees in today’s work environment. There has been a significant shift at various companies including global giants such as Apple, Google, EY and Starbucks. Surely a premier degree counts but is not a golden ticket anymore. Employers are more on result focused than ever before and want to bet on people who are more result oriented and no crazier towards a fancy resume.

 Key Competencies are worthy:  Competencies have become a must for today world. It is ahead of education and experience. Corporate have strengthened their competency frameworks over decades and they are using it as a lens for talent acquisition now, moving away from the traditional format of testing job know-how and seeking academic excellence.

Wisdom happens in classrooms: Organisations in the last two decades have started investing  heavily in building infrastructure for employees development through  physical classroom. The rise of online and affordable learning opportunities have reduced the traditional format by being more cutting edge, relevant and experiential, as learning can happen anytime, anywhere and at any time.

Annual Appraisals are institutionalized: Organisations depending on annual appraisal will find it difficult and may not sit well with the workforce of today especially with millennial entering the workforce.

What gets measured gets done: Analytics is the way to go but getting too obsessed with metrics can also lead to missing the big image entirely. You may have won a race at the cost of everything but your players might have already started a different race.

Social media is mostly for chilling purpose: Digital footprints are permanent and are just like tattoos and can reflect your mood on any particular day but may embarrass you on another day.  We need to lookout out what we put out there as employers are spending time on this before they make an offer to you.