The Incentive To Work

As a people’s organization (which we consider ours as one), a significant element that contributes to the productivity of the organization is the trend in “employee sentiments.” I would say that given the long-working hours and continuous evolution of our work process, we always tend to be on our toes and this creates a very good competitive environment. May be, that’s what spurs me to consider our daily time “deadlines” as “lifelines.” I feel that its time we realized the key to balance our work and life. I believe that as we take our work in a more enjoyable manner, we create the opportunity to satisfy ourselves, with minimum conscious efforts.

Here, I would like to quote Mr. Srinivas Rao Kandula, Head-Human Resources, iGate, “Today, the fear of the unknown has affected employee sentiment. They are less ready to move to unfamiliar environs amidst new people.” With this kind of paradigm shift, I feel we owe ourselves the duty to motivate the self and peers alike. Each employee is an asset to the organization and it becomes vital to maintain the satisfaction levels in work. Adding to this is the issue of maintaining consistency in performance and keeping the motivation levels high, despite the monotonous work.

Now it’s the turn of the HR

When an employee joins an organization, the greatest challenge the HR department faces in most organizations is on-boarding new joinees. I strongly believe that the new entrant needs to be made aware of the realistic situation from day-one itself, by keeping an eye on the motivation levels of the employee. Motivational training is still in its evolving phase, but we can always start it right where we work.

Creating the environment for knowledge-sharing activities

I feel there are some ways by which we can break monotony in work and fillip ourselves up:
1. We need to identify whether team members view knowledge as a public good belonging to the whole organization. Motivating employees to share knowledge on any domain they are comfortable with will foster a seamless transition.
2. One common constraint here is, when individuals give the highest priority to the interests of the organization, they tend to shy away from contributing knowledge for a variety of reasons. The reasons being:
o Fear of criticism
o Unsure of the significance of contribution thereby afraid of misleading the team members
3. To remove the identified barriers, there is a need for developing various types of trust, ranging from the knowledge-based to the institution-based trust.

The benefits of a motivated team:
o Motivated employees always look for better ways to do a job
o Motivated employees are more quality oriented
o Motivated workers are more productive

The aforesaid points can be collated to reach a conclusion, which justifies the need to spruce up ourselves and strike a balance between our work and life. For satisfaction in our profession highly complements our social well-being. The more we enjoy the daily responsibilities in office, keeping realistic targets and fulfilling our priorities, the better will be our holistic growth.

By Debanjan Chakraborty

Use Plastic Money And Make Life Smarter

In today’s materialistic world, every one is running behind money or you can say that the whole world is running behind money.

In addition, these days, things have become costlier and with out hard cash it is difficult to make any outright purchase, if you are an impulsive buyer. Nevertheless, with ‘Plastic Money’, i.e. Payment Cards, you can do it without carrying any money on you. There is no burden of carrying a bunch of notes, no fear of loosing or forgetting the wallet at home. Welcome to the age of ‘Plastic Money’.

Influence of western lifestyle has changed things in India too. India is also turning to ‘Plastic Money’ and it has become more fashionable. Making payment through cards is so simple and faster. No need to wait for the change or stand in the queue to make payments. Now it is not just swiping the card, it’s contact less payment or ‘Tap and Go’ payment. Here you have to just hold the card in front of the reader machine or tap the card on the machine, and your payment will be done within a minute.

However, there are also risks associated with making payment through cards. However, payment card industry is advancing with new technologies. Here the chip will be in-built into the card, mobiles, or wristwatches etc. Currently, mobiles are used to make payments. Contact less payment is under trail in UK and US along with biometric payment too.

Cards are not just boring plain cards anymore. This payment card industry has become more interesting. There are gift cards for every occasion, with beautiful designs over it. You can also customize your card design according to your preference. You can put your own photo on the card. Gift cards are prepaid cards, one time use card and reload able cards are available. You can select the card according to the occasion and gift your loved one, and make them feel special.

So go ahead and shop to your heart’s desire!

By Usha Gokak

Old is Gold: Here is an outlier in the world of ever changing advertising campaigns

This is a classical case – defies all trends, all classical wisdom, and if seen as a ‘wave’, would just sound a death knell to all advertising agencies.
I saw on TV yesterday an old old ad – one for Nirma ‘beauty’ soap – I think the commercial is atleast 10 years old, if not older, and has aired unaltered off and on throughout that time. I viewed it objectively – and, honestly, did not feel fatigue (which I had half expected), nor did I feel that I knew all I wanted to about the soap – I just felt a bit of nostalgia, and ofcourse, a renewed sense of admiration for the sheer beauty of the celebrity model in the ad….
And I started thinking – if this old – really old – ad is leveraging awareness of the brand; as well as evoking liking for it thanks to a) the nostalgia element and b) the model, then WHY are so many brands working at changing advertising every single month, if not day, and spending millions of dollars that could either beef up their bottom line, or be ploughed back as other investment? Look at the US fast food industry for example. Apparently there are anywhere between 500 - 1000 new commercials released every month from the top national QSR chains alone.
Of course, I know the answers – there is freshness/ competitive pre-emption/ changing hooks or differentiators/ topicality/ repositioning – all of that. I am sure there is a lot of truth in all these arguments.
But, for the companies who in the face of the recession are saying – should we increase advertising expenditure because consumers need greater persuasion to buy; or should we reduce advertising expenditure to protect our bottom lines; if they were to follow Nirma’s path, atleast they save the money spent on creative execution!