How to Negotiate a Job Offer Setting Yourself up for a Successful Career Opportunity: Find out all the particulars about the company you are applying for. Thank the employer for the offer, even if it’s not workable for you. Negotiate a time frame for deciding upon whether to take it or leave it. Do your homework thoroughly online. Think about whether the potential job matches your needs and goals. Research the competition. Find out what kind of leverage you have, if any. Picture Courtesy : ManagementParadise Negotiating Your Best Offer Possible: Get in contact with your liaison or hiring manager one more time. Before going into the negotiation, know your minimum and target salary. Ask for more money without actually spelling out a number. Brush off the employer’s attempts to pin you down to a number Wait for the employer to offer a number. Present a better offer if you feel like you’re worth more. Incorporate benefits or perks into the conversation. Get everything in writing. Picture Courtesy : Salary.com Consideration of Other Details: Listen to your instinct during the entire negotiation process. When asking for a salary, ask for a correct number. Don’t play the pity card. Be affable, understanding, and never burn bridges. Be confident.   “Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiation”~ JFK “During a negotiation, it would be wise not to take anything personally. If you leave personalities out of it, you will be able to see opportunities more objectively.” – Brian Koslow  ...

EQ or EI When we talk about IQ or Intelligence Quotient, another entity which is indispensable to the smooth running of your business comes into the picture. Yes, I’m talking about Emotional Quotient or EQ, also called as Emotional Intelligence or EI.  The concept of emotional intelligence is a blanket term that covers a broad collection of individual skills and dispositions, usually referred to as soft skills or inter and intra-personal skills. One must be adept at handling situations which warrant application of EI and at the same time strong in his/her basic IQ. Answer these simple questions and please don’t think way too extensively. Simple thinking will do… 1. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator? The correct answer is: Open the refrigerator put in the giraffe and close the door. This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.  2. How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator? The wrong answer is: Open the refrigerator put in the elephant and close the door. The correct answer is: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door. This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your actions. 3. The Lion King is hosting an animal conference; all the animals attend except one. Which animal does not attend? The correct answer is: The Elephant. The Elephant is in the refrigerator. This tests your memory. OK, even if you did not answer the first three questions, correctly, you still have one more opportunity to show your abilities. 4. There is a broad, deep river you must cross. But it is inhabited by hungry crocodiles. How do you manage it? The correct answer is: You swim across. All the Crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting! This tests whether you learn quickly from your mistakes. This EXERCISE is cited just to show that logic or reasoning is an important element in management; at workplace or home. Parallel Thinking Just that you have to prune your memory to enhance your parallel thinking. In general parallel thinking is a further development of the well-known lateral thinking processes, focusing even more on probabilities—looking for what can be rather than for what is. Be Mindful of Others’ emotions: Emotional intelligence can be defined as the ability to monitor one’s own and other people’s emotions, to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior. Emotional intelligence involves being MINDFUL of emotions and how they can affect and interact with traditional intelligence (e.g., impair or enhance judgment, etc.). One must also be able to develop and maintain healthy interpersonal relationships apart from being intelligent. It involves a lot of psychology which is in-built in our mechanism and heightened by our exposure to various work situations and challenges. An examination of more than 300 top-level executives from fifteen global companies showed that six emotional competencies distinguished stars from the average. Influence Team leadership Organizational Awareness Self-confidence Achievement Drive  and Leadership Using Emotional Intelligence on the Job Emotional awareness is being in touch with the feelings of others. Well, if you say that “Emotions don’t go well with Logic”, and “Emotions can’t be mixed with Business”, I’d like to remind you “A controlled mind and cheerful spirit” are crucial when it comes to employee engagement and sustaining their morale. Even though your employees are well trained and technically experts in their own area, it takes that extra something for them to work whole-heartedly for their principals. They have to identify themselves with the organization and its objectives, in particular with the key persons...

HR Selection Process and Techniques   Following the process of recruitment is selection, where the management has to select the right employees at the right time. The intention is to choose appropriate candidates for the unfilled spots and to avoid commitments to those whom the management thinks will not work well. The best qualified individuals from the pool find their place whose qualifications match the job specifications.   What is the Selection Process in Human Resource Management? Selection process depends upon the · Size of the company · Nature of the business · Kind and Number of persons to be employed · Government regulations to be followed etc.   The process includes 1. Collection of data about the candidate’s qualification 2. Experience 3. Physical and mental ability 4. Nature and Behavior 5. Aptitude and the like   Steps in Scientific Selection Process: A. Job Analysis: This is the basic step for finding the right candidate and each organization should lay down job analysis, job description and job specification with clarity in order to lure the right candidates for selection. B. Recruitment: Process of searching for prospective employees and stimulating them to apply for jobs in the organization. C. Application Form: This is also known as the application blank. This facilitates collecting detailed information from the prospective employees regarding their age, gender, family details, qualification, skills, experience, achievements etc. This is widely used to screen employees at the preliminary level. D. Written Examinations: are conducted to gauge the · Mathematical ability · Aptitude · Reasoning · Knowledge in various disciplines · General Knowledge and · English language abilities of the candidates. E. Preliminary Interview: This is suitable to eliminate the undesirable and unsuitable candidates and also to gather personal information from the candidates on a one to one basis. F. Group Discussion: Group discussions help the management to pick out bright candidates from among the group members and also the ability of each individual to adjust to the group. Each group is expected to analyze, interpret and find alternate solutions and select the best solution for a particular case study or subject matter. G. Tests: To further assess the skills of the employees the management conducts different kinds of tests. H. Final Interview: This is the most essential step in the process of selection. The interviewer matches the information obtained about the candidate through the application with that of his own observation and questioning. · Informal · Formal · Planned · Patterned · Non-Directive · Depth · Stress · Group and · Panel interviews are some of the types of interviews conducted in accordance with the job requirement. Also See: Interview Preparation Tips I. Medical Examination: Certain jobs require certain physical qualities like clear vision, perfect hearing, unusual stamina, tolerance of hard working conditions, clear tone etc. J. Reference Checks: The personnel department will engage in checking reference if the candidate passes all the tests and found suitable for the job. What kind of Companies the Employees are Attracted to – Here is an interesting infographic on “How to Attract the Perfect Employee”...

Definitions of Human Resource Management:  1. “A series of integrated decisions that govern employer-employee relations. Their quality contributes to the ability of organisations and employees to achieve their objectives.” (Milkovich & Boudreau, 1997). 2. “Concerned with the people dimension to management. Since every organisation comprises people, acquiring their services, developing their skills, motivating them to higher levels of performance and ensuring that they continue at the same level of commitment to the organisation are essential to achieving organisational goal. This is true, regardless of the type of organisation: viz. government, business, education, health, recreation, or social action.” (Decenzo & Robbins, 1989). 3.”The planning, organising directing and controlling of the procurement, development, compensation, integration, and maintenance of human resource to the end those individual, organisational, and social objectives are accomplished.” (Flippo, 1984). 4. “The organisation function that focuses on the effective management, direction, and utilisation of people; both the people who manage produce and market and sell the products and services of an organisation and those who support organisational activities. It deals with the human element in the organisation, people as individuals and groups, their recruitment, selection, assignment, motivation, empowerment, compensation, utilisation, services, training, development, promotion, termination and retirement.”(Tracey,1994 ) Knowledge Workers Human resource management is therefore understood as the all significant art and science of managing people in an organisation. Increasing research output in behavioral sciences, new trends in managing ‘knowledge workers’ and advances in training methodology and practices have led to substantial expansion of the scope of human resource management function in recent years. HRM is not just an arena of personnel administration anymore but rather a central and pervasive general management function involving specialised staff as assistants to main line managers. Managing employee relationships is the role of the Human Resource department Human Resource Management is a process of valuing and developing people at work, this includes: Recruitment and selection Employee communication and engagement (participation) to increase employee retention Training and development  Leadership WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST WEAKNESS Labour turnover & staff retention Labour turnover refers to the proportion of a workforce that leave during a period of time (usually one year) Labour turnover =  number of staff leaving during the period x 100 average number of staff Staff retention refers to the ability of a firm to keep its workers. The disadvantages of having a large proportion of staff leaving each year include: The cost of recruiting replacement workers The cost of training the new workers  Loss of productivity whilst replacements are found  Loss of experienced workers  Negative impact on reputation WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST STRENGTH Methods to control turnover: 1. Financial methods of motivation Bonuses Profit share Fringe benefits 2. Non financial methods of motivation Employee engagement and empowerment Training and development Promotion opportunities 3. Improved Human Resource Management procedures  Four Fundamental Principles of HRM: Human Resource is the organisation’s most important asset; Personnel policies should be directed towards achievement of ENTERPRISE goals and strategic plans; Corporate culture exerts a major influence on achievement of excellence and must therefore be    strengthened with consideration of employee welfare. Whilst integration of corporate resources is an important aim of HRM, it must also be recognised that all organisations are ‘pluralist societies’ in which people have differing interests and concerns, which they defend and at the same time function collectively as a cohesive group. →Evolution of...

Role of Training Some Definitions of Training: According to Flippo, “Training is the act of increasing the knowledge and skills of an employee for doing a particular job”. Training can also be defined as  as “any planned or structured activity or approach designed to help an individual or a group of people to learn as to do things differently or to do different things leading to more effective performance and results”.  Role of Training: Training is the best way to reach the enterprise goals in minimum time period with maximum efficiency. 1. Training unlike experience can reduce the time required to reach maximum efficiency. 2. Cost of training in much less than the cost of adding experience . 3. The results of experience sometimes can be accidental. 4. The expected results are very much assured in a well conceived and well conducted training program. 5. Its purpose is to achieve a change in the behaviour of those trained and to enable them to do their jobs better. 6. Training makes newly appointed employees fully productive in lesser time. Identifying Training Needs: There are three elements of training – purpose, place and time. Training without a purpose is useless because nothing would be achieved out of it. The purpose must be identified carefully and now there are a large number of techniques available for establishing training needs. Having identified the purpose of a training programme, its place must be determined i.e. whether it has to be on the job or off the job. Place would decide the choice of training method and also affect its effectiveness. The next element is the time. Training must be provided at the right time. A late training would provide obsolete knowledge, which would be useless for the employees.  1. Organizational Analysis: – Comprehensive analysis of organizational structure, objectives, culture, processes of decision – making, future objectives and so on. Analysis begins with an understating of short term & long-term goals of the organization. Is there  adequate manpower to fulfill organizational objectives? Whether the work-force  possess required skill & knowledge? Are the employees willing to learn?  2. Task analysis: Thorough analysis of various components of jobs and how they are performed has to be done. Task analysis would indicate whether tasks have changed over period of time & whether employees have adequate skill in performs their tasks. 3. Man Analysis: The focus is on individual, his skill, abilities, knowledge & attitude. Key Indicators are Meeting Deadlines Quality of performance Work behavior...