http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-11-15/news/30401556_1_work-life-balance-time-management-interest

Get Organised

Time management is of the essence when it comes to maintaining work-life balance. "Spending more time in office doesn't necessarily translate into productivity," says UB Group senior VP (marketing) Samar Sheikhawat.

"The key is to maintain discipline on the job. That includes coming on time, or possibly even a tad earlier; not taking extending coffee or lunch breaks, or whiling away time on gossip." It's purely about prioritisation, he adds.

List Priorities

If you don't have a good work-life balance, you can be successful but not happy. "To achieve both, it's necessary to focus on four life quadrants: work, family, friends and self," says TeamLease Services co-founder and senior VP Sangeeta Lala. "All four are equally important. If you focus on all these and maintain discipline, it's more-or-less a done deal."

Develop Interests

Get interested in things other than work and make time for them. It could be something as simple as catching a movie, working out or pursuing an interest at an individual level or with friends and family.

"Make sure you are allocating part of your spare time to something enjoyable. Switch off completely when you're spending time with your family," says TeamLease's Lala.

Learn to Say 'No'

Putting in that extra bit is good, but it's equally important to know when to put your foot down and say no. "Many of us are under the impression that saying no or refusing to do something beyond what we are supposed to can be detrimental to our careers. But that's not true. There's no point in doing something out of a false sense of guilt or obligation. Setting boundaries is essential," says Sheikhawat.

Pursue Your Calling

Identify your areas of interest and do what interests you. "We often tend to take a job because there's a certain aura around it or our peers are doing it. Instead, by taking up something that interests you, can can avoid undue stress. Work becomes much more enjoyable and you can take time to stop and smell the roses," says Sanjay Modi, managing director, Monster (India/ Middle East/ South East Asia.

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/enhancing-employability-in-india/202113-60-122.html

BANGALORE: Team Lease Services, India’s staffing solutions company and Indian Institute of Job Training (IIJT), a vocational skills training company organised a job fair for youth in Bangalore recently. The job fair was conducted with an aim to connect job aspirants with employers, assessment counselors and training professionals.

Top companies like Value Point Systems, Linkin Consulting and Karvy Consultants, TSG Global, Ascent consulting, Avishkaar Techno solutions, Puma and Trimax Infrastructure participated in the job fair. The job fair drew around 220 candidates and around 70 candidates were shortlisted. The breakup of the shortlisted candidates is as follows: According to Shajan Samuel Divisional Head IIJT Education, “This is the third successive Job fair in consecutive month organised by IIJT Education� at Bangalore and in all these Job fair’s our effort has been to� align job profiles with Domain Knowledge, with the influx of engineering colleges which don’t have a tight entry gate, campus placements are becoming a huge challenge, leaving students in the lurch and with no options but to attend job fair’s to get placed, the worst hit are the BTech students, quality teaching has been circumspect and promises are not being kept by substandard engineering colleges which have mushroomed in numbers over the last five years.”

Engineering colleges in India now have seats for 1.5 million students, nearly four times the 390,000 available in 2000, according to the National Association of Software and Services Companies, a trade group.� But 75 per cent of technical graduates and more than 85 per cent of general graduates are unemployable by India’s high-growth global industries, including information technology and call centers, according to results from assessment tests administered by the group.

Their success in placing students through these Job fairs have been modest, 45 per cent candidates go through the second round and 20 per cent gets selected , our average turn out in Bangalore for the last three months have been around 200, the reason for rejects remains the same, communication skills, lateral thinking and comprehension

Shajan further added, “What an IIJT Job fair does is that it’s gives repetitive chances for a fresh� graduate to get a Job ,also it offers diversity in Job roles, salaries, industries, we have built a data bank of candidates who have attended our� previous Job fair� and keep in touch with them. We don’t charge money from the client nor the students, for us at IIJT is a dial tone we want to develop , over a period of time we want to be known� as a Private Employment Exchange which does Placement and Training.”

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/et-cetera/five-ways-to-cope-with-noise-at-work/articleshow/10685813.cms

Noisy co-workers are a part of everyone's working life. But if an organisation has an open work environment, it becomes a serious problem, and retaining concentration and productivity becomes that much tougher. Moresha Benjamin lists a few ways to cope with noise at the workplace. 

Go Online 

An effective way of reducing noise at the workplace is by using more online communication tools. Social networking sites that are instituted and monitored by the organisation and meant exclusively for its employees are a great way to propel meaningful communication both at the personal and professional level, says Ravi Shankar, senior VP, human resources, HCL Technologies. 

Talk it Out 

Approach loud co-workers directly and make them aware that their behaviour is disturbing everyone. People are receptive to such feedback, and make attempts to contain their behaviour. If they are unable to do so, you could also help them find an amicable solution to the issue at hand, says Surabhi Mathur Gandhi, senior VP, TeamLease Services. 

Have Policies in Place 

"Request your manager or HR department to enact company policies regarding cell phone ringtones, speakerphone usage, paging systems and other noise-producing devices. Plants are also good at absorbing noise," says Meenakshi Roy, senior VP, human resources, Reliance Broadcast Network. HR can also help by regularly reminding employees to use extensions and internet chat while interacting with each other. 

Wear Ear Plugs 

"Sound cancelling headphones are a great option for blocking noise but are often daunting to the average office-goer given their steep cost. The good news is that there are less expensive (and low-tech) options available like over-the-ear or in-ear buds that typically block out most interruptions," says Shankar. If you are a music lover, an optimal way would be to replace the noise with music. Listening to your favourite tunes using headphones will also avoid disturbing people around you, says Deepak Kaistha, Director, Planman Consulting. 

Use White Noise 

A personal white noise machine can help one achieve speech privacy in an open office. There is a variety of white noise products ranging from the very low-cost white noise CDs to very high quality multi channel products which cover entire buildings, says Shankar.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/jobs/it-companies-like-infosys-tcs-and-others-see-decline-in-attrition-levels/articleshow/10636752.cms

BANGALORE: IT companies have been witnessing a sharp decline in the attrition levels over the past couple of quarters. This is similar to what happened during the 2008 recession when attrition declined as job opportunities fell and employees grew cautious about changing jobs due to the uncertain economic environment. 

Surabhi Mathur-Gandhi , senior vice-president at Team-Lease , says a similar trend is building up now as people are worried that the economic troubles in Europe could snowball into a global recession . She noted, though, that attrition levels have not yet fallen to the single-digit levels that were witnessed at the height of the previous recession. 

The attrition rate at Infosys Technologies dropped to 15.6% from 17% over the past two quarters. At TCS, it fell to 13.7% in the quarter ended September, after having risen for several quarters to reach a high of 14.8% in the quarter ended June. MindTree's attrition rate fell to 21.7% in the latest quarter from 25.6% in the June quarter. 

MindTree CEO Krishnakumar Natarajan, however, says the fall in attrition is due to the proactive HR efforts and employee-retention initiatives undertaken by the company. The growth in the sector is strong, and thus it is not the economic climate that is driving attrition down. "Clients continue to spend even on discretionary services (spends beyond what is required for maintaining existing IT infrastructure)," he adds. 

R V Ramanan, ED-global delivery at Hexaware Technologies, says that after the global economy began to pick up following the 2008 recession, attrition levels went up quite sharply as people had more job opportunities . What we are witnessing now is a moderation from those highs. Attrition levels at Hexaware fell to 14.7% over the past two quarters from 19.6%. 

"Attrition levels are now coming back to more realistic levels of 14-15 %," adds Ramanan . Employment portals and recruitment agencies say hiring activity is slowing down. Amitabh Das, CEO of recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) service provider Vati Consulting, says despite IT companies posting good quarterly results, they have begun factoring in the possibility of an impending slowdown. 

IT companies are now slowing down on their lateral hires (those with experience of more than about three years). This indicates that they are expecting a moderation in growth, as lateral hires are typically ramped up in order to drive growth. 

In the July-September quarter, the number of lateral hires for Infosys stood at 2,318 employees against its average lateral hiring of 4,246 over the previous four quarters. TCS hired 40% of its total recruits laterally in the September quarter as compared to 65% in the previous quarter. Analysts say the greatest slowdown in movement of employees is at the middle and senior levels. Employees at this level, typically , lose the most from uncertain conditions. 

PLAYING SAFE 

Attrition levels in the IT industry have not yet touched single-digit levels seen during 2008 recession 
Despite good results, IT companies have begun to factor in the possibility of an economic slowdown 
Middle and senior levels are showing big slowdown in employee movement

I represent India – a land with a billion population, with 490 million labour workforce, 93% of which is in the informal and the balance 7% are busy positioning self interest as national interest where less than 2% of the workforce has had any kind of vocational training, where 58% of our graduates suffer from under employment, a land which since 1991 has witnessed reforms across various segments except in labour.

My name is Ritu, am Co-Founder and Senior Vice President of TeamLease who within 9 years of its inception have left a mark of being one of the largest organised private sector employers in the country. Over the last 6 years we have hired 1 person every 5 minutes  incomparison to the Government run Employment exchanges which has been able to provide 0.2 million jobs since 1947. In addition I represent Indian Staffing Federation which has been recently formed between 8 of India’s largest Staffing Companies representing 50% of the over 0.6 million temps in India in the formal sector.

Its important to mention in this context that we have two customers in our business – user employer and candidate. Our business prospers and grows because of the good will we have manage to create by helping our fresh out of college youth and job market outsiders who till sometime back did not know how to get into the labour market.

From a public policy perspective the case for temporary staffing in India can be clearly elucidated through the following points

·         It definitely reduced unemployment as well as underemployment and gives the country access to a liquidity provider

·         It gives outsider access – those less fortunate, housewives, retired personnel 

·         Acts as a stepping stone for a permanent job – over 50% of our temps get absorbed by the user company, 45% of them leaves us within an average tenure of 10-12 months to get a permanent job elsewhere. In India we call temporary staffing – Apprenticeship on steroids

·         Helps lower the arbitrage offered by the unorganised or informal or rogue sector of employment

·         Boosts entrepreneurship and productivity

·         Employment being the best form of social security reduced the burden of cost of social security for those unemployed

·         And lastly and extremely pertinently for India improves employability

What is the challenge in India

·         Regulatory Cholesterol – 56 labour laws which have seen little updation since instituted in in the 70s and in the 40s

·         Lack of enforcement

·         Unemployability

Unintended Consequences

–        More jobs going to the informal sector

–        lower human/ organizational capital

–        Unorganized Temping; political/ criminal nexus

–        Blue collar wage differential

What are we doing to improve the situation?

·         We have been invited by the Planning Commission to work together with them on 12th Plan to recommend changes and improvement in the labour law regime and how we can move jobs from the informal sector to the formal sector

·         We are working closely with the government to understand the concerns and issues of the unions with relation to contract labour

·         We are participating alongwith the government in tripartite discussions with Unions to convey what we actually do rather than let them dwell on their assumption of what we do. Using the platform to convey that we comply by every labour law in the land, that we have a set of best practices which benefit the temps, that we bind ourselves with a strict code of conduct.

·         There are over 45000 trade unions in India. Any 7 employees can come together to form one. We are seeking better and more organised representation of the Unions as well to help understand each other better.

·         We are also working closely with National Skill Development Council to become a source of realtime information on the jobs that are in demand so that they can invest in developing those skills nationwide

·         We are also in discussion with the Government to float a special Apprentice scheme for the temp workforce with higher stipends to be paid to negate the informal sectors offering where gross wages is equivalent to the net wages.

·         At TeamLease we have established a network of over 200 training centers connect where we intend to provide blended vocational training to kids who walk into our offices. In addition we have set up our own university so that we can train candidates with the right kind of vocational training which makes them readily employable.

In Conclusion Three fatal flaws/ assumptions that everyone who treats temporary staffing with contempt and suspicion

1. Idealism                               the good is the enemy of the great
2. Averaging                            one size fits all
3. Stability                                the world is predictable and linear

and lastly That Job Creation and Growth are driven by Investments – Besides a good infrastructure the only way to increase Job creation and growth in any economy is to mandatorily  have an effective skill development mechanism and an efficient labour regime

Thank You

Rituparna Chakraborty;  Co-Founder – TeamLease Services Private Limited