Five Books I Enjoyed Reading

Five blogs which I liked

Five ways Pixar makes right decisions

http://blogs.hbr.org/davenport/2010/07/how_to_make_good_decisions_les.htmlfix

How to fix misunderstandings at work and in life

http://blogs.hbr.org/pallotta/2010/12/communicate-with-humanity.html

New Study: When NBA Players Touch Teammates More, They and Their Teams Play Better

http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/12/new-study-when-nba-players-touch-teammates-more-they-and-their-teams-play-better.html

Do political scandals really distract us from important issues?

http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2010/12/do-political-scandals-really-distract.html

The down side of always telling children to work harder

http://www.newsweek.com/blogs/nurture-shock/2009/12/14/the-downside-of-always-telling-kids-to-work-harder.html

The Year 2010 at THRG

 Thane HR Group [THRG] is an informal group – there is no membership fee and no office bearers. But a core committee [anybody can join it, you too can join, just write to Anil K] met early in the year to decide the theme for the year so that the programs remain in line with our purpose. The theme was "Telescoping in to Future: Managing HR creatively."

Keeping in line with this theme Thane HR Group has organised many events in the year 2010. All the programmes got huge response from the members and we are thankful to them for their continuous support. THRG being an informal forum it does not generate any revenue by way of membership. Few of the programmes of 2010 were sponsored by companies like Paper Products, 3P Consultants, Thane Janata Sahakari Bank, TBZ, and Jupiter Hospital.

The core Committee of Thane HR Group [Alok Sheopurkar, Sharad Gangal, Anil Kshatriya, Anil Joshi, Dipak Gadekar, Prashant Karmalkar, Suresh Ogale, Prashant Sawant, Ms Daisy Garud and Vivek Patwardhan] was constantly working on new formats and discussing ideas to make the programmes meaningful and interesting. You would have noticed the different format when Mr. Ghaisas spoke about his life and work and was interviewed by Alok Sheopurkar.

The Annual Event programme was based on one such idea. We said we will give first-hand experience of running a business to HR professionals so that nobody can make allegation that they do not understand business. We organised a Business Simulation Game which provided experiential inputs.

During the year Mr Sridhar Ganesh, Group HR Director of Murugappa Group, Mr. Dileep Ranjekar, CEO of Azim Premji Foundation, Mr. Deepak Ghaisas, currently Chairman of Gencoval Strategic Services Pvt Ltd. and erstwhile CEO of I-flex Solutions, Dr Devadutt Pattnaik, Chief Belief Officer of the Future Group, Mr Sanjay Jha, CE of CricketNext.com, Dr JM Sampath, MD of Arpitha Associates addressed the audience at Thane HR Group.

More exciting programmes this year, announcements will be made on Thane HR Group on LinkedIn.

Join us.

Thane HR Group’s Second Annual Seminar

I have written about the innovative activities of Thane HR Group earlier on this blog. Thane HR Group [THRG] is a non-organisation. I cannot find a better word to describe it. A group of senior HR professionals [Sharad Gangal of Thermax, Alok Sheopurkar of HDFC Mutual Fund, Dipak Gadekar of Voltas International, Suresh Ogale of TechNova Imaging, Dr Prashant Karmalkar of Accenture, Anil Kshatriya of AK Placements and Daisy Garud of ICICI Ventures] comes together once in a month to organise a program for HR professionals.

THRG also organises an annual seminar once in a year, in December. The organising committee met to decide the theme. Somebody said that we should do something about the allegation of line managers that HR managers do not understand the business imperatives. So some brainstorming followed. We decided to hold a business simulation program for HR managers. Dr Prashant Karmalkar was very keen to do it for quite some time and now things fell in place.

Sharad Gangal spoke to Sinhgad Institute at Lonavala. They agreed to provide conference facilities. Prashant finalised the details of the simulation program. Anil K took charge of enrolment. Suresh Ogale and Anil K got sponsors. We decided to limit the number of participants to sixty.

The Annual Seminar was held on Dec 10 and 11. It was a great success. Ten teams fought in the virtual automobile market. One team led consistently till last round. And another team piped them to the post in a thriller. The winning team’s photograph is seen here. Also seen are Sharad Gangal, Dr Prashant Karmalkar, and participants in discussion.

Vivek 

Labour News Dec 4

While the economy is looking up, some old evils raise their head........The news today which caught my attention........

Employment in the country rose by 4.35 lakh during the July-September quarter this year, said a survey carried out by the government.

The survey, which covered eight selected sectors, said the maximum increase in employment was observed in textile sector including apparel where jobs generated were 2.45 lakh.

The textile sector was followed by the IT/BPO sector where employment rose by 1.08 lakh.

Employment in the automobile industry and metal industry rose by 0.29 lakh and 0.27 lakh respectively, the survey conducted by the Labour Bureau under the Ministry of Labour and Employment said.
Business Standard [Link]
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In India, the government itself in its most recent account estimates that 12.6 million children under the age of 14 are at work in various occupations including hazardous occupations. NGO estimates put the number of children employed in domestic work and roadside eateries alone at two million. Centre of Concern for Child Labour, estimates that there are nearly 70 million school-age going children in India who are out of schools. So the total number of working children in India is much higher than the government estimates.
Meghana Sharma’s story in DNA [Link]
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Work at the Haldia Dock Complex, which is administered by the Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT), remained paralysed for the second consecutive day on Thursday, due to a strike called by four workers’ unions. The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS), Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) and the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) are protesting against a change in the shift pattern of workers, which has been employed to tide over the present financial crisis at the port.

“We are implementing certain changes in the shift of workers, as the port was bearing a loss of more than Rs 80 crore per annum due to payments for overtime work. The management wants to reduce this expenditure. So, even though some workers are protesting, we will go ahead with our plans,” said M L Meena, KoPT chairman.
Business Standard story [Link]

Draft Labour Policy: Maharashtra

The Government of Maharashtra has published a draft labour policy on Nov 6, 2010.

Kindly give your suggestions and objections on the same by 31st of December, 2010 on email- sudinagricos@yahoo.com.

You can download the draft labour policy here... [Link]

Vivek