Early Life, Education and Career –

Richa Kar was born on 17^th July, 1980 in Jamshedpur. She belonged to a very conventional family. Her father used to work in Tata Steel and her mother was a homemaker. As a person belonging to a conventional family, she had no business role model at home. Richa completed her education from Bits Pilani in civil engineering and started working in IT sector as a Software Analyst in an IT firm. She always had an insatiable urge to know how a business works. Latterly, she started pursuing MBA from NMIMS in 2005 and completed in 2007.

After MBA, she worked as a Brand Communications Manager at Spencer’s. She was promoted as an area manager a year later. In March 2010, she got an opportunity to work with SAP as a Consultant – Business Process. At SAP, she learnt a lot about leadership and how businesses operate, which eventually became her passion that led her to become the founder of Zivame.

The Zivame Story –

Richa had observed that online lingerie shopping was non-existent in India. People didn’t even think lingerie as a category in online portals. Moreover, good brands of lingerie weren’t even available in cities except the top 10 cities in India. In the initial stage, she wasn’t thinking about e-commerce. It was only the idea of the gap in the lingerie market in India that had persuaded her to explore the possibilities. Richa also observed that the distribution system of lingerie in India had many loopholes. In some parts of India, it is considered as a taboo and women also find it uncomfortable talking to vendors while shopping. Also, there are ranges of size which causes mix-up.

Even though, Suchi Mukherjee had come up with a similar venture that dealt with women articles, it did not have the category that offered lingerie products. The Zivame entrepreneur wanted to come up with a distribution system that can circumvent the problems of physical distribution of lingerie. She identified the opportunity and grabbed it, and that is when she ideated the e-commerce platform, Zivame. Richa thought that such an e-commerce platform that would handle the transactions of the lingerie business would also impart privacy it needs.

She designed the e-commerce website in such a way that it doesn’t only deliver the product but also educated the customers on how to choose the right fit. Zivame also had online product experts women can chat with, or ask queries. Apart from that, Richa Kar believes in providing good service to the customers. So, she made an arrangement for reverse pick up and money back / exchange kind of policy in case the customer did not like what was delivered. This enabled the customers to have trust in the venture and thus ensured the sustainability of her startup.

Challenges –

Kar family was initially very happy to know that Richa is venturing into entrepreneurship. However, they also did not take it seriously and thought that it is a passing fad. They had no idea that Richa was venturing into a forbidden territory that has social stigmas associated with it. When her parents learnt about Richa’s plan to launch an online lingerie store, they could not fathom the decision. Her father was unable to understand the idea behind this business. On the other hand, her mother was afraid of the embarrassment it would cause. Somehow, she could convince her parents and started the e-commerce business.

The major challenge she had faced was in the year 2015-16. The company had reported 84% increase in the net losses at Rs.54 Crore in FY16. She stepped down as the CEO in February 2017. Richa continues to be in the board and contributes to the organization in every possible way.

Her contribution to SheLeads –

She was asked about her thoughts on women entrepreneurs in an interview with YourStory. Richa Kar’s perspective was that man entrepreneurs and woman entrepreneurs are one and the same thing. Both the genders need to work hard and the challenges and advantages are all the same. The Zivame founder also mentioned that being a woman entrepreneur in lingerie business makes it easier for her. She can easily relate with the product, decipher customers’ demands and be familiar with the dynamics of the market. Her idea about not having the need to differentiate the perceptions about man and woman entrepreneur is appealing. It inspires women to have courage and become entrepreneurs.

Today, Zivame has 5000 styles, 50 brands and 100 sizes of lingerie under its belt, with 2.5 million unique visitors a month and sells two bras a minute. It is because of her hard work, courage and commitment towards her entrepreneurial intentions, Zivame has been able to sustain itself in the highly competitive market. Richa Kar’s journey as an entrepreneur is inspirational and something young entrepreneurs should learn from.

I’ve learned five keys to meeting new employees’ expectations and keeping them engaged on the job.

“How Can I Help” Leadership

Command and control is old-school; servant leadership is the new school of management. To improve retention, throw out old dictatorial practices and focus on how leaders help employees achieve their goals. Rather than tell people what to do, the servant leader looks for ways to remove obstacles that prevent people from succeeding.

As an executive servant leader, I dedicated at least 50 percent of my time each week meeting with people to understand how they did their job and what they needed to achieve their goals more effectively. I always took notes and made a point of following up to report on what actions I had taken as a result of their input.

In addition, every month I held “bear pit” sessions where I invited key employees from various functions to come together and “have at me.” They asked bold questions and I answered, unaccompanied by my support staff. To say that these sessions were grueling would be an understatement but I quickly learned how people were feeling in my organization and what was needed to enhance their engagement.

Regular Performance Feedback

Everyone wants to improve, and if employees don’t get constructive performance assessment on a frequent basis, they feel abandoned by the organization. They have no idea what they need to do to improve and as a result feel that no one really cares about helping them do a better job. Employees who don’t get feedback leave for an organization that has employee performance management hardwired into its culture. Show your people that preparing employees for future opportunities is a priority for leadership.

I held each of my direct reports accountable for conducting regular performance reviews with their reports; it was a key element in their performance plan and their annual bonus depended on how well they carried out the task.

Career Development Plans

Every employee needs a specific plan for how they’ll learn new skills and get exposure to new opportunities. Leaders are responsible for making sure every employee has a detailed career plan, including potential lateral moves that could enhance their long-term potential.

One way I measured a leader’s effectiveness: looking at how many of their employees moved around to new positions in the organization in order to expose them to new challenges. The effective leaders made it a priority to proactively move their people around; the mediocre ones never did and as a result had short tenure in my organization.

A Personalized Culture of Engagement

A culture isn’t created by corporate programs. It’s defined by everyday personalized acts of leadership. No two people can be engaged in the same way, hence the problem with a single engagement program that is forced to fit all individuals. Instead, a leader can create a personalized culture based on how they interact with each employee every day.

My calendar was full of one-on-one conversations with individuals in my organization. Those conversations made it fairly easy to understand how I could help them identify more strongly with the goals of the organization.

Fair Compensation

The most obvious way to retain employees is to satisfy their basic needs: pay and benefits. Without those fundamentals, it’s difficult to attract people through the recruitment process and to hold them if they take a position with you. You must be at least comparable to your competitors to play the game.

Standout organizations with incredible retention rates invest heavily to both discover individuals who align with their vision and values and to build a culture that encourages them to stay. The leader who wants to retain loyal employees makes it an everyday priority. Focus on these five practices and not only will your retention rates improve, your peers will look at you as the organization to watch in the field.

We at CXO are pioneers in establishing the best human resource management system in corporates through our array of services. For more information, please feel free to get in touch with us.

This blog was first published at: https://talentculture.com/employee-retention-5-proven-ways-to-make-employees-never-want-to-leave

Recruitment agencies differ according to the services they offer, the region where they operate and the sectors they cover. Also, they help in the recruitment for different levels in the hierarchy. Some of them may be inclined towards lower or middle management, while others would be offering service at leadership level. So, when an organization requires a strategic partner that can help you in the recruitment processes, it is important to choose the right recruitment agency.

Organizations and candidates need to keep the following points in their mind while they hire a recruitment agency –

1. Define the requirements –

When it comes to hiring, different organizations have different requirements. Some may be in need to fill a permanent position while the other may need an employee on contractual period. These specifications are very important to consider while selecting a recruitment agency. Some of the employers may be looking for candidates on leadership level while the others may need a candidate at the middle level of management. HR management must be very sure about the kind of candidate they need and the skills associated with the vacancy. Determining the staffing needs is the most basic step in selecting the right recruitment agency for the particular assignment.

2. Search for recruitment agencies in your region –

It is very important for some organizations to work with a recruitment agency who knows the dynamics of local market. Such kind of an HR agency would be able to deliver the best fit for the organization’s culture. If an organization needs to hire a person for Ahmedabad location, then it would be better to contact an HR agency which is located in Ahmedabad. Same is the case with other cities. Some recruitment agencies have experience in hiring candidates overseas too. An organization has to choose the best one among the available ones.

3. Agency’s qualification and experience –

Once an organization is done with selecting the relevant recruitment agency, it is important to ask about the qualification and experience. This would give an idea about their competency to execute a particular task. For example, an HR agency with an experience in leadership level hiring would be able to deliver services regarding CXO recruitment. An organization must also check if the agency is qualified enough. This kind of approach would ensure that the agency you are going to hire is qualified, experienced and well versed in recruitment laws and practices.

4. Consider sector –

It is important to look for a recruitment agency within your sector. If an organization has to hire a manufacturing manager in a steel company, then it makes more sense to consult an agency with rich experience in industrial sector. Going to a technology recruitment agency for industrial sector hiring would be futile.

5. Time and Financial factors –

It is an HR manager’s responsibility to negotiate with a recruitment agency in terms of money to save the recruitment cost. Also, it is necessary to get the recruitment process done in optimal time. It is important to note that an HR agency who claims below market rate may not be perfect to work with. Also, the ones who claim prices above the market rate may not be the best ones. It is more about optimizing the recruitment cost rather than going for the cheapest one.

6. Personal Recommendation or word of mouth –

If someone from your network has recommended a particular recruitment agency, it is more likely that they will be providing good service. This is the most traditional way but the most effective one. A personal recommendation ensures that the HR agency is competent and the hiring process would lead to productive results.

7. Check their website and social media handles –

In the contemporary digital world, every organization has a website and a social media handle where they post their updates and blogs which depict their thought leadership. Same is the case with recruitment agencies. A website gives an idea about their clientele and domain and the social media handles give an idea about the culture of the HR agency. After going through the clientele, an organization can also contact other organizations that use their services. By doing so, an organization gets an idea about its reliability, ethics, practices and professionalism.

A good recruitment agency adds value to an organization. It doesn’t only execute the hiring process but also works for long term with the organization as a business partner. It also provides consultancy services in other HR related activities. So, it is imperative for an organization to consider all the above factors before consulting an HR agency.

Education –

Suchi Mukherjee was born in 1973 and belongs to a middle class family in Haryana. She completed her Bachelors in Arts with specialization in Economics and Maths from The University of Cambridge. She also acquired a Master’s degree in Finance and Economics from the London School of Economics. Soon after she completed her Master’s degree, Suchi started her career.

Career as an employee –

Mukherjee embarked on the journey of her career as an employee with Lehman Brothers Inc. in July 1998. Her designation was new Senior Associate for Corporate Finance. Suchi continued to work with them for over 5 years and looked into the sectors including Telecoms Media Technology and Financial Institutions.

In June 2003, she joined Virgin Media, as a director for change and business development. She was also a member of their customer division management team.

After working with Virgin Media for two years, Suchi Mukherjee joined eBay. This became the turning point of her career. This made her grow in terms of position and gave her access to knowledge of how business actually functions. She had joined the company on a position that demanded leadership. She was the head of Business Sellers Programs & CS in the year 2006. Her performance in the department was extraordinary and she was promoted as the Director and Member of Executive Management Team of Skype. It was a part of eBay back then.

At Skype, she was responsible for planning, product design, and marketing. The diverse responsibilities enhanced her knowledge and developed her as a leader. She got hands on experience in the transition of a start-up to a well-established unit with 3 CEO changes in just 2 years or so.

She was then promoted as the new Managing Director for Gumtree. Gumtree was under eBay and required transformational leadership quality. She spent most of the time on scaling team capabilities, product, sales, marketing and CS functions. Suchi also reinvented and restructured financials towards the core revenue streams.

Within two years, Gumtree became UK’s largest horizontal classified business. When she had joined, the company was at no. 3 position. It then rose to market leading position in jobs and consumer-to-consumer car sales.

The Limeroad Story –

During her tenure as an employee at different organizations, she had unconsciously developed an entrepreneurial mindset. She was ambitious to make something on her own and contribute to the society.

The idea of Limeroad.com became her brainchild when she was reading a magazine. She observed two important things –

1. There wasn’t a single consumer technology that made the discovery of local accessories and products easy and entertaining.

2. There wasn’t any online platform that can give information about the products that are manufactured and shipped out of India. In a way, India was disconnected from the virtual world.

Suchi decided to build a platform where women can find beautiful and affordable products in an extremely easy to discover interface. She knew that women love different products and the problem of product discovery was very hard to solve. Moreover, she found that 21% manufacturing of lifestyle products originated from India. Most of the vendors were unrecognized on global and even national level. She identified a great opportunity in making the local market of accessories easily accessible. This is when she flew down to India.

After coming to India, she roped in her friend Ankush Mehra, Head of Supply Chain – Reliance Hypermarkets as her co-founder. Prashant Malik (Ex-Facebook, Microsoft and Siemens) joined as a techie co-founder of Limeroad.com. Latterly, some other people like Ahti Heinla joined as their Technical Advisor and Michael V Swaaij joined as their Advisor.

The revenue model of Limeroad was very simple. It was commission based. Limeroad earned money when the vendors sold. The team started building a good product. They collaborated with lots of brands with categories like apparels, accessories, home and food.

Challenges –

Suchi Mukherjee faced lot of challenges regarding business like complex bank processes, registering the company with the RoC (Registrar of Companies) process, and other formalities. Apart from that, balancing work, family and entrepreneurship was difficult. According to her, it is difficult for women to execute everything because there is lot of family expectations from them. However, Mukherjee says that she has a very supportive family and her husband and children are her inspiration.

Achievements –

• In 2015, she was awarded Women of the Year – Digital Business by INFOCOM.

• She was awarded with NDTV Unicorn Woman Entrepreneur of the Year award by NDTV Unicorn in the year 2016.

Her contribution to SheLeads –

The idea of Limeroad has created a whirlwind in the e-commerce market, especially for women entrepreneurs. It is not only a platform that provides the women their online ‘me time’, but has brought community of entrepreneurs to surface. Women who never knew can curate clothing combinations have gathered opportunities through Suchi Mukherjee’s initiative. Limeroads most powerful ambassadors are women. 36 years old Lorina Richmond launched her styling advisory business spurred by Limeroad experience. Also, 14-year-old Farheena from Bangalore, suffering from cerebral palsy found an outlet of her style ideas.

There are very few people who have comfortable jobs abroad and decide to come back to India to add a value. Suchi Mukherjee is one of them. One thing was certain that there are going to be uncertainties, but she had decided to do something substantial that contributes to the society. Apart from her leadership prowess, her incredible determination and ability to balance work and family are the qualities that have led her to success. Today, Limeroad aims to reach out to more than 400 Million mobile users, 40-50% of which are women. From just an impromptu idea to making Limeroad a frequently used application, Suchi Mukherjee has achieved a lot. Her journey of dedication and hard-work is something upcoming entrepreneurs should learn from.

‘Despite an abundance of organisational initiatives aimed at supporting women’s leadership, our research shows that the critical factor in a woman achieving the top job is still active ownership of her own leadership career,’ said Andromachi Athanasopoulou, Associate Fellow at Oxford Saïd and Assistant Professor in Organisational Behaviour at Queen Mary University of London. ‘This starts with acknowledging her ambitions and seeing herself as a leader, accepting the work-life compromises she will have to make, and “toughening up” to overcome both personal and external barriers.’

‘Claiming the corner office: Female CEO careers and implications for leadership development’, by Andromachi Athanasopoulou, Amanda Moss-Cowan, Michael Smets, and Timothy Morris, is published in Human Resource Management. It draws on in-depth qualitative interviews with 12 female CEOs and 139 male CEOs of global corporations, aimed at exploring what enables some women to become CEOs.

The authors found that working with the ‘self’ is vital for women in getting and doing the job of CEO. Self-acceptance, self-development, and self-management form three stages in female candidates’ gradual progress towards the corner office.

Self-acceptance

The female CEOs in the study described the way they recognised their leadership ambition and potential as a moment of ‘acceptance’ rather than celebration.

‘All leaders face difficult work–life trade-offs, but women are often still judged for prioritising career over family. For a woman to recognise her leadership ambition requires making a conscious and effortful choice about what she will become, what she will give up, and the criticisms she will face,’ said Amanda Moss-Cowan, Research Associate at Oxford Saïd and Assistant Professor of Management at the University of Rhode Island College of Business Administration. ‘While our CEOs took work–life balance issues seriously, they framed work–life decisions like other business decisions: recognise the need to make trade-offs, make a choice, accept the responsibilities that come with it, and move on.

‘Overcoming confidence barriers (their own as well as barriers set by others) is also important. This is why our CEOs encouraged young women not to wait until they feel completely ready for a job. Instead, they should seek stretch assignments for their development: that is, take active ownership of their career progress.’

Self-development

This is how female CEOs learn to lead. Because women typically have limited access to suitable formal development programmes, they rely on self-development, drawing on resources from their environment. This includes actively developing networks that help their careers and help them become better leaders as well as seeking out mentors.

There is a strong transformational theme in how these female CEOs lead others that involves nurturing and communicative behaviour, seen as stereotypically feminine, as well as role modelling. However, the research found that as part of their self-development they concentrated on developing leadership skills and behaviours that are usually thought of as stereotypically masculine – such as ‘seeing the big picture’, developing ‘vision’, and other strategic capabilities. They treated these as additional and complementary to the stereotypically female transformational style in which their own leadership was anchored. That is, they neither attempted to mimic a ‘male’ leadership style nor presented themselves as ‘female’ leaders, but created a rounded and distinctive blend of leadership skills and behaviours that put the feminine first.

Self-management

The research found that, even once they have become CEOs, female leaders have to work hard at self-management in order to balance competing expectations and demands. For example, they have to ‘be the boss’ while, at the same time, appear ‘not too pushy’.

‘Even the successful female CEOs in our sample admitted that it could be difficult to feel authentic when adopting some “masculine” leadership behaviours, and that there was a risk that people would react negatively when they did so,’ said Michael Smets, Associate Professor in Management and Organisation Studies at Oxford Saïd. ‘So what they did was blend the different types of behaviours and translate them into something entirely new – and stereotype-free. Instead of being assertive in one situation and empathetic in another, for example, the leaders in our study found a way to be empathetically assertive.’

‘It remains true that aspiring women leaders face a range of gender-related barriers at both personal and contextual levels that are simply unknown to their male peers,’ said Tim Morris, Professor of Management Studies at Oxford Saïd. ‘Our study found that it is possible for women to overcome these, but only through an enormous amount of “self-work”, starting early in their careers. Significantly, we discovered that the successful female CEOs we interviewed dealt with the challenge of gender stereotypes not by subverting them but by transcending them. This has important implications for HR departments, those working in leadership development, and for all women who have leadership ambitions.’

We at CXO are actively encouraging the growth of woman in the corporate sector through our exclusive service SheLeads. For more information, please feel free to get in touch with us.

This blog was first published at: https://recruitmentbuzz.co.uk/oxford-study-shows-exactly-takes-woman-become-ceo/

It is a well-known fact that being an entrepreneur is not an easy task. It needs virtues like courage, passion, cussedness, patience and most importantly an innovative mind. And entrepreneurship entails formidable risks. Despite having all the required skills and eminent qualities, if an entrepreneur fails, it becomes disappointing and poignant. But what is worse is the failure does something bigger than the financial loss. They face public humiliation and unfair reproach leading to a loss in their internal confidence and makes it very difficult for such entrepreneurs to rise back.

While stigmatizing their failure, more often than not, people forget that failure isn’t merely an outcome of internal factors; it also involves external factors like market situation, policy regulations, and demand of the particular product. Other factors like labor (or team), the attitude of clients and availability and quality of raw materials (if applicable) also plays a major role. While success and failure are majorly considered as cause and effect phenomena, such factors come into the picture when a deeper analysis is done. So, entrepreneurial failure doesn’t necessarily depict the poor professional forte of the entrepreneur.

A failed entrepreneur happens to be someone who has learned a lot of lessons, not only regarding business but also life as failure comes with enormous wisdom.

In an era when companies need constant innovation for the growing competition and demands of the market, it is important for organizations to have people with an entrepreneurial mindset. Following are some ways by which a fail entrepreneur can be a boon to the organization –

• Decision making – An entrepreneur is someone who is capable of making decisions independently. And when it comes to a failed entrepreneur, the experience and lessons learned from the failure helps to make a better decision. Using their hands-on experience, an organization can make better decisions.
• They aren’t afraid to take risks – An organization always needs to take risks to execute tasks. As mentioned above, entrepreneurship entails risk. So, an entrepreneur happens to be someone who has not only taken risks in past but also knows about the consequences. So, a failed entrepreneur has a natural disposition to take risks tactfully. This helps an organization to take calculated risks.
• Quick Learning – Entrepreneurship needs continuous learning approach. To be aware of the new innovations in the market, it is necessary for them to keep learning. An entrepreneurial mindset allows them to learn new things quickly.
• Ability to talk with customers – Entrepreneurs are people who have founded their businesses from ground zero. This is to say that they can deftly execute communications with clients. It doesn’t matter if it is a kickoff meeting for a particular project or a query call during the project, they would be efficient in it.
• Ability to handle a team – Entrepreneurs have great leadership qualities. They are quite competent in handling a team in their respective fields.
• Ability to take initiatives – Entrepreneurs are proactive workers and can take initiatives independently. This hugely helps the organization.

Considering above points, it is conspicuous that hiring an entrepreneur can prove to be beneficial to an organization. But there is a flip side to this concept, which offers an oppositional reading. Entrepreneurs are generally independent workers, and it becomes difficult for them to work under a ‘manager’. So, there are things that must be considered before hiring an entrepreneur –

• They should be over with their own venture – It is formidable to hire a person that already has one foot out of the door or looking to work on their failed venture along with the current job. This would lead to a lot of distractions in their present job.
• They should be ready to move forward – Failing in a business venture is poignant and debilitating. So, the hiring managers should look to confirm that their wounds aren’t fresh and are healed enough to embark a new journey.
• Commitment – Entrepreneurs should be committed to the new assignment and ready for a long haul. This will not be possible if they are looking to launch another business or looking for a job just to make up for the financial losses of their business.
• Willingness to work with someone else – Entrepreneurs are leaders and they are not habitual to be the second fiddle to someone else. Recruiters should make sure that the failed entrepreneurs are aware of the fact that there is only one captain of the ship.

Considering such factors would lead to a better decision while recruiting a failed entrepreneur.

To cite a prominent example of how failed entrepreneurs can be beneficial to an organization, let us take a peek into Tata Consultancy Services. TCS had hired 15 entrepreneurs who helped to build 20 software products in the area of mobile solutions. One such entrepreneur developed a wireless solution that a South Korean mobile firm wanted to buy. This talks about the possible successes that such entrepreneurs can deliver.

Analyzing the above facts and perceptions, it can be concluded that a failed entrepreneur can be a good bed to an organization if hired tactfully; as failure is not an attribute of a person but has its roots in so many other factors. So, hiring managers should look beyond the cognition and stigma about the failed entrepreneurs and look to hire them in the interest of the organization.

Early life & Education –

Rashmi was born in Lucknow and grew up in Kolkata and Allahabad. Hailing from a family of professionals, she had no business and entrepreneurial influence around her.

She acquired post-graduation degree in Cognitive Science from Allahabad. Later, she went to U.S for her Ph.D in Brown University. She then took up Computer Science with the American researcher and professor, Andy Vann Dam. She got exposure to the world of human computer interaction (HCI) way of thinking. After that, she wrote a thesis on Cognitive Basis of Categorical Learning.

Early Career –

She further discovered her love for web. Rashmi got a department transfer and started working on search engines and recommender systems. The insatiable avarice to learn new things was always there. Even though, she loved her work, she did not want to pursue academia anymore. She found it dull and slow-paced. It was only when she realized that she finds practical problems more interesting and enjoyable, her entrepreneurial mindset started taking shape.

The SlideShare owner had a passion for creating new things. She founded Uzanto which was a user experience design consulting company. While she was working on a project with eBay, her husband joined her. Her software engineer husband found that the method used for the project can be translated to software. This led to birth of a new venture called MindCanvas in 2005. It was an online game kind of software made for running surveys and other kind of customer research. MindCanvas was sold to top companies like Microsoft and Yahoo. This became a stepping stone in the life of entrepreneur woman, Rashmi Sinha.

The SlideShare Story –

Rashmi always wanted to make a meaningful impact by ideating something new and big. After lot of brainstorming with her husband, Jon; they observed that there is no website that exclusively caters shared PowerPoint presentations. People used to share presentations via emails, pen drives and hard drives but there wasn’t a one-step repository to it. In early 2006, Rashmi along with her software engineer husband, Jon and mechanical engineer brother, Amit Ranjan ideated SlideShare.  SlideShare was live in early October of 2006.

SlideShare started operating in two offices – at San Francisco with 8 employees and Delhi with 20 employees.

It soon became famous globally with entries of thousands of PowerPoint presentations each day. Audience perceived SlideShare as next generation business media site that revolved around presentations that play pivotal part in corporate world and business. Unlike other content driven websites, Slideshare doesn’t have content creators. The users are content creators. The website generated organic traffic and wasn’t used for advertisements. It underwent enormous growth at a very fast pace which makes her a proud owner.

Management Style –

The most noteworthy aspect of her entrepreneurial pursuit is her democratic style of management. Here are some points that elucidate her method of working –

• Executing her own chores – She is flexible towards her staff but stringent when it comes to her own work. First thing she does in the day is checking emails and answers the important ones immediately. Rashmi believes that overload of unanswered emails creates havoc and it becomes difficult to execute the task later.
• Creating a team atmosphere – Rashmi doesn’t believe in working from her private office room. She rather joins the employees alongside the desk. It instills a huge sense of teamwork and ownership in employees.
• Time Management – She has reserved mornings for conceptualization and afternoon for consumers, advertisers etc. This makes her stay absolved of disorganized work.
• Taking reports – Mondays start with meetings wherein every week, one of them has to talk on three questions – What you did last week, what you would like to do today, and what you need from somebody else to execute the work. This creates an open and interactive atmosphere in the workplace and she ensures that everyone gets a chance to talk. Also, she gets to know about the status of work going on in the company. It is an idiosyncratic way to stay informed without officially taking the ‘weekly report’.
• Keeping the team motivated – The weekend starts at 5 p.m. on Fridays when whole team parties with beer on the house.

Her contribution towards SheLeads – She catches up with people who are in need of startup advice and finds time for upcoming women entrepreneurs. She was quoted saying –

“I’m seeing more and more technically-inclined Indian women nowadays. There is definitely potential to bring that talent, with a little bit of mentorship and encouragement, to foster a wave of female entrepreneurship.”

Achievements –

• In 2008, she was in list of top 10 women influencers in Web 2.0 by Fast Company.
• In 2012, Fortune named her no. 8 on its most powerful businesswoman entrepreneurs list.
• The Economic Times listed her in one of the 20 most influential global Indian women in January 2015.

In May 2012, LinkedIn had absorbed SlideShare for $119 Million. It had 9 Million presentations and 29 Million unique visitors. Rashmi runs SlideShare as a unit of LinkedIn as head of product, technology and marketing team. Under her leadership, SlideShare has 70 Million unique visitors a month and 38 Million registered users today.

Rashmi Sinha’s urge to impact the world and her vigor in business makes her a successful entrepreneur. Her leadership attributes and vision to promote SheLeads is inspirational and something that future entrepreneurs need to learn from.

Of course, people are more likely to jump ship when they have a horrible boss. But we’ve spent years working to select and develop great managers at Facebook, and most of our respondents said they were happy with theirs. The decision to exit was because of the work. They left when their job wasn’t enjoyable, their strengths weren’t being used, and they weren’t growing in their careers.

At Facebook, people don’t quit a boss — they quit a job. And who’s responsible for what that job is like? Managers.

If you want to keep your people — especially your stars — it’s time to pay more attention to how you design their work. Most companies design jobs and then slot people into them. Our best managers sometimes do the opposite: When they find talented people, they’re open to creating jobs around them.

Working with our People Analytics team, we crunched our survey data to predict who would stay or leave in the next six months, and in the process we learned something interesting about those who eventually stayed. They found their work enjoyable 31% more often, used their strengths 33% more often, and expressed 37% more confidence that they were gaining the skills and experiences they need to develop their careers. This highlights three key ways that managers can customize experiences for their people: enable them to do work they enjoy, help them play to their strengths, and carve a path for career development that accommodates personal priorities.

Crafting Jobs for Enjoyment

Many of us have unanswered callings at work — passions that we didn’t get to pursue in our careers. Whether we lacked the talent, the opportunity, or the means to make them our occupations, landing in a different career doesn’t make these passions disappear. They linger, like the professional version of the one who got away. And since we spend the majority of our waking hours at work, there isn’t always time to pursue these unanswered callings as hobbies. So we look for ways to bring our passions into our jobs. Personally, we know a lawyer who missed his dream of being a pilot and so sought out aviation cases, and a teacher who walked away from a music career but brings a guitar to class. But inside organizations, people often need support to craft their jobs.

Managers can play a major role in designing motivating, meaningful jobs. The best go out of their way to help people do work they enjoy — even if it means rotating them out of roles where they’re excelling. A few years ago, one of Facebook’s directors, Cynthia, was leading a large team of HR business partners. She realized that she wasn’t spending her time doing what she enjoyed most: solving problems with her clients. She had taken on more responsibilities managing a large team because of her strength as a trusted adviser to some of Facebook’s key leaders. But once she was in the job, she realized it meant doing less of the work that energized her.

With her manager’s support, Cynthia hired someone new onto the team, with the long-term vision of asking her to run the team and then moving back to an individual contributor role. Cynthia wasn’t just hiring a direct report; she was hiring her future boss. Once the new hire was ramped up, and it was clear that she enjoyed the organizational and people management elements of her job, she and Cynthia made the switch. Cynthia is now thriving, solving problems with the clients she loves so much, and her new hire is leading the team. Keeping Cynthia at Facebook was much more important to her manager than keeping her in a particular role.

Too often, managers don’t know enough about what work people enjoy. It spills out in exit interviews — a standard practice in every HR department to find out why talented people are leaving and what would have convinced them to stick around. But why wait until they’re on their way out the door? One of us, Adam, has worked with companies in multiple industries to design entry interviews. In the first week on the job, managers sit down with their new hires and ask them about their favorite projects they’ve done, the moments when they’ve felt most energized at work, the times when they’ve found themselves totally immersed in a state of flow, and the passions they have outside their jobs. Armed with that knowledge, managers can build engaging roles from the start.

Bringing in Underutilized Strengths

In a world dominated by specialization, we’re long past the era of the Renaissance Man. Once in a blue moon we see one. Marie Curie won a Nobel prize for her pioneering work in physics, and then earned another in chemistry. Richard Feynman transformed electrodynamics, decoded Mayan hieroglyphs, and cracked safes in his spare time. Although few reach this level of accomplishment in multiple fields, many talented people are polymaths. At Facebook, our head of diversity is a former lawyer, journalist, and talk show host; one of our communications leaders used to sing in a rock band; and one of our product managers is a former teacher. Sadly, the narrow job descriptions that companies create stifle their ability to use the full range of their employees’ skills.

Smart managers create opportunities for people to use their strengths. To see how that can play out, let’s consider Chase, who was recently working as a software engineer at Instagram. About six months ago, when his team went through rapid product iteration to introduce new tools and formats, Chase helped lead the team to exceptional results. But he finished the project drained from the extensive coding and cross-functional work — and started wondering whether there were other ways to contribute. Talking with his manager, Lu, he realized that while he had a strong technical background, where he really excelled was building prototypes to help prove concepts quickly and then iterating. But Instagram didn’t have any roles that blended this skill set, and Chase didn’t have a track record in traditional design work.

Lu convinced the design team to take a risk and allow Chase to try a new role for a “hackamonth.” During that time, Chase partnered with Ryan, a product design lead, to quickly build several prototypes that tested novel ways of capturing and sharing. His success not only landed him in a brand-new role that leveraged his strengths but also created the conditions to build a broader team of collaborators with similar skills and interests. According to Lu, “A shift to this role was a no-brainer for Chase and a win for Instagram. All that was missing was the push to make this happen.”

Creating new roles isn’t the only way to let people play to their strengths. In a connected world, a huge part of getting work done is seeking and sharing knowledge. Some estimates suggest that knowledge workers spend more than one-quarter of their time searching for information. It’s up to managers to help them figure out where to turn. As managers learn who knows what, they can connect the dots — or better yet, build a searchable database of experts. The goal is to put employees’ strengths on display so that people know whom to contact.

Making It Possible to Lean In at Work and at Home

In too many situations, opening a door in our careers means closing one in our personal lives. The special project that takes date nights away from our partners. The big promotion that takes weekends away from our kids. The new role across the country that takes us away from our families.

At Facebook, our best managers work with people to minimize these trade-offs by creating career opportunities that mesh with personal priorities. Here’s an example.

Shona, an agency lead, was coming back from maternity leave to a global role where time zones directly conflicted with her parenting. With her manager, Shona developed a prioritization plan for travel. For anything that was important but not essential, she worked with regional colleagues to set up meeting coverage. Shona’s manager also connected her with a mentor in a global role who guided her through her transition. In Shona’s words, “This deep level of support gave me the confidence to return to work fully present and also be there for my daughter.” Managers who give this kind of support find that their people not only deliver but also stay longer — they’re proud of where they work.

People leave jobs, and it’s up to managers to design jobs that are too good to leave. Great bosses set up shields — they protect their employees from toxicity. They also open doors to meaningful tasks and learning opportunities — they enable their people to be energized by their projects, to perform at their best, and to move forward professionally without taking steps backward at home. When you have a manager who cares about your happiness and your success, your career and your life, you end up with a better job, and it’s hard to imagine working anywhere else.

This blog was first published at: https://hbr.org/2018/01/why-people-really-quit-their-jobs

Image Courtesy: https://unsplash.com/photos/BjcGdM-mjL0

Unlike other CXO positions, it is not easy to define the job responsibilities of a COO. The role is defined in relation with the higher CXO position, CEO. The style of management and leadership, power and responsibility of a COO changes from organization to organization. It is difficult to discern whether the COO who has been successful in one company would be successful in another company. The selection of COO resembles to the selection process of leadership positions like Vice President or Chief of Staff.

The roles and responsibilities of a COO –

The prime goal of this CXO position is to ensure that the company is running in the most efficient manner. The COO also sustains the operation of management system. Essential functions at this leadership level are –

• Provide day to day leadership and management to an organization in a way that reflects the mission and core values of the company.
• A COO is responsible for the sales, profitability, cash flow, and business goals of the organization.
• At this leadership level, the COO is responsible for measuring internal and external processes of the company. The COO provides accurate, complete and timely reports on the operating condition of the company.
• Development, communication and implementation of growth strategies and processes.
• Work with management team to ideate plans for operational infrastructure of systems, processes and personnel to meet the desired rapid growth objectives of an organization.
• At this CXO position, a working professional motivates and leads a high performance management team.
• The COO stays in direct contact with top management of clients and acts as client-care officer.
• Raise additional capital to enable the organization to meet sales, growth and market share targets.
• Nurture the organization and foster a success oriented and smooth working environment in a company.

A COO contributes to the organization by performing above KRAs. However, this CXO model ends up fulfilling lot of responsibilities and performs different roles as required. This is how a COO works for an organization –

• As the executor – As an executor, this particular CXO leads execution strategies developed by the top management team. The need to fill this leadership position is prevalent in organizations that are operationally intensive.
• The change management agent – COO leads change in the system of management in an organization.
• The Mentor – As a person at higher leadership level, he plays the role of a mentor to the management personnel in the organization.
• The Partner – It is important to take the ownership of an organization and function more like a partner.
• The other half – The COO complements the experience, knowledge and leadership style of the senior CXO. If the CEO has an intimidating influence, then COO imbues a calming effect and vice versa. It is all about instilling a sense of balance in the organization.
• The heir of the organization – Whenever a company is looking to hire a new CEO, the board looks upon COO as the most eligible candidate.
• As the MVP – At times, this CXO position is handed over to an employee as a promotion. This happens when the top management feels that the person is too valuable to lose.

What the CEO expects from a COO –

Both the CXO positions work together and complement each other in the operation of business. A COO who is second in command to CEO owes the person at higher leadership level the following –

• Respect – It is imperative for a COO to respect the CEO and believe in his strategic leadership.
• Ego check – Both the CXO positions need to work in harmony. As both are on high leadership levels, ego may come into picture. A COO needs to check the ego at the door.
• To keep an eye on execution – CEOs generally focus more on strategy. So, they expect their respective COO to focus on execution part.

A CEO ensures a transparent communication, clear decision right and shares the spotlight with COO.

This CXO position was not so prevalently known previously. However, in the last few years, prominent companies have announced new COOs. These include Microsoft, RadioShack, Airbus, Allstate, KPMG’s U.S. Subsidiary, Nissan, BellSouth and Apple.

A COO happens to be the person who runs the show. The absence of a COO leaves the company with a major hole in the organizational structure. The ramifications of not filling this CXO position are perilous and can prove to be detrimental to the company. It is imperative for an organization to hire a COO to ensure that management is properly monitored and strategies are effectively executed.

Early Life, Education and Career –

Albinder Dhindsa hails from Patiala, Punjab. He completed his bachelor’s degree from IIT Delhi. He then worked as a transportation analyst in URS Corporation for 2 years and later joined as a Senior Associate in Cambridge Systematics in 2007 where he worked for more than 3 years.

In May 2010, he went on to pursue a Master’s degree in Business Administration at University of Columbia, United States. While pursuing MBA, he also joined UBS Investment Bank as an associate and worked with them for around 3 months.

Post MBA, Dhindsa decided to move back to India. He was very sure of the domain he wanted to work in. He joined Zomato as their new Head of International Operations. At Zomato, he gathered a lot of knowledge and experience. While working there, he began working on his life’s most audacious project, Grofers.

The Grofer Story –

As mentioned earlier, Dhindra had already spotted the loopholes in logistic market.  He had found it mismanaged. While brainstorming with his partner Saurabh Kumar, Albinder saw that most of the transactions between consumers and local merchants were unorganized and needed improvement. He also went on to talk with merchants with solid customer base. They were struggling to deliver higher quality and reliability. They lacked the kind of infrastructure needed to deliver that quality. This is when they started ideating the startup that could circumvent such day to day problems. The entrepreneur duo named the start-up as One Number.

Their initial intention was to provide an on-demand pick up and drop service from shops around their neighborhoods. The shops included pharmacy, grocery and restaurants. The idea was to create a one-stop solution for customer’s local delivery needs. With competitors in the market like Zomato, they started observing that most of the orders were coming from pharmacy and grocery stores, and very few from restaurants. Dhindra and his partner realized the need to confine their business to only grocery and pharmacy. Subsequently, they rebranded themselves as Grofers – A hyper-local logistics company.

Albinder thinks that the scope of Grofers is wide. Any business that wants door to door delivery can collaborate with Grofers. It would result in higher reliability with reduced costs. In short, it is a win-win situation for everyone.

The Major Challenge –

At the end of 2015, the company was at a loss of Rs. 225 Crores on revenues of only 14.3 Crores. For few months, Grofers kept recording monthly losses of Rs. 7 Crore on revenues of Rs. 5 Crores. Success had come at a tremendous rate when Grofers had launched a mobile application in 2015. However, the scale-up operation had gone haywire. This is where Grofers’ revenues suffered major losses. Dhindsa identified the loophole. The problem lied in complicated and fragmented supply chain. It was creating problems in delivery consistency. The Grofer entrepreneur thought that the problem can be resolved if the company established its own supply chain.

The idea was to have Grofer’s own warehouse and supply chain management. It needed a lot of investment. At the initial stage, no investor wanted to get into a business that was not making much profit. Gradually, Dhindsa and his partner could convince some investors and business started making profit. Latter, other investors followed suit. They established 60,000 sq. ft. storage facilities in Delhi, Bengaluru and Gurgaon. Other cities like Hyderabad, Chennai and Jaipur had smaller 20,000 sq. ft. warehouses.

This made the supply system captive. Business started picking up from February 2017. Average order value shot up from Rs.750 in July 2016 to Rs. 1300 where it stands currently. Solving this kind of problem and elevating the company from financial turmoil to success, depicted Albinder Dhindsa’s impeccable business acumen.

Achievements –

Under his leadership, Grofers was named one of the top 10 start-ups in Delhi by YourStory.com (2014). It was listed amongst the top 10 promising Gurgaon based start-ups in 2014 by IndianWeb2.com.

It would be prosaic to associate Albinder with Grofers as someone “who joined later”, for his contribution as a co-founder has been massive. Albinder Dhindsa has shown intransigent tenacity in the crisis period of Grofers. His sagacity to identify issues and ideate solutions has allowed him to raise Grofers to pinnacle and he is ambitious about the expansion. His grit and ability to face challenges is something every entrepreneur should emulate. Today, Grofers is valued at $115 Millions in the market.