In the corporate world bandwidth refers to the capacity of an employee to complete a task in give time frame with accuracy. An organization expects their employees to complete a task with available resources, handle tasks alertly, handle projects with finesse, maintain transparency and proper flow of information within a business context. It can refer to the physical capacity of a network to communicate the flow of data related to workload and the ability to address a complex situation. To me, a high-bandwidth person is one who can rapidly intake information, synthesize it, and communicate efficiently. To explain bandwidth in HR I have given example of Mr. Punit Chatwal a renowned Hospitality Industry champion.

Puneet Chatwal of Indian Hotels Company Ltd MD & CEO has large bandwidth of multitasking and ambition to grow IHCL since 2017, the company got on board a very aggressive target of 50 percent growth in the number of hotels. Since then, they have added 70 new hotels to their portfolio. Primarily, this has been driven through strategy, focus, a change in business model, and a culture of rewarding performance. As the company has grown, they have been strengthening the culture of the company. Chatwal is  disciplined and a visionary.

Networking is vital for professional and personal development because it raises connections, facilitates knowledge sharing, and creates opportunities for growth. It expands a person’s   reach for opportunities, provides valuable advice and support, and enhances his  professional reputation. Human bandwidth refers to the amount of mental and emotional capacity a person has available to process information, make decisions, and handle various tasks and challenges at any given time. It’s a limited resource, like time or physical energy, and when it’s depleted, individuals may have trouble focusing, making decisions, or managing stress. Puneet Chhatwal is a people’s man; he is frequently described as a leader who values people and is focused on building strong relationships within his organization and in the hospitality industry.  

Bandwidth is often used as a metaphor for the available time, energy, and resources to take on new responsibilities. When someone says, “I don’t have the bandwidth,” they often mean they don’t have the capacity and energy to handle additional work. This can relate to the number of ongoing projects, workload, or the complexity of tasks.

As leaders, manager, it is very important to know that everyone has a different capacity. For example, if it takes one person to complete a certain task in one hour, it can take the other 3-4 hours. Managers must assign the work to each team member according to what they can handle.

Bandwidth in HRM signifies an employee’s ability to manage a workload, process information, and make decisions within a specific timeframe. It includes mental energy, emotional stability, and time that an employee can allocate to work. Bandwidth affects an employee’s ability to prioritize tasks, meet deadlines, and handle the complexities of their role. When an employee’s bandwidth is stretched thin (e.g., due to excessive workload, high stress, or lack of support), it can lead to burnout, decreased productivity, and reduced decision-making quality. 

Puneet Chatwal says that his people are fundamental to the desirable brand equity enjoyed by IHCL. He involved 40 of our senior leaders in creating the ambitious 5-year business strategy. This was supported by ‘culture meets’ that helped in fostering an environment of collaboration and teamwork. It has helped people to take accountability and become highly engaged and invested in the company’s success. Chatwal is known for understanding people he is future proofing the talent to ensure they are ready for the growth that is coming from within the industry and IHCL’s aggressive pipeline. He believes in Leadership Pipeline Model of HR. The model does not need to hire stars from outside for the key positions. Outsiders clog the pipeline because of the culture they bring does not go well the organizational culture. 

Conclusion: Bandwidth is not will power, a person can’t just think harder to get more.  Bandwidth is not intelligence or knowledge you can’t educate yourself into more. Bandwidth is not time; we can’t control it so easily. Bandwidth is more like the physiological limit of how much “thinking” we can do in one moment.  When bandwidth demands are high, but bandwidth availability is low, what happens then?  Usually it means we are weaker, we are experiencing a burnout, we are fagged out and we will fall short of the expected quality of work.

I know many people who like to work alone. In fact, even I like to work alone. Working independently gives you more time to focus and genuinely focus on issues. It helps you in learning a new skill and improving existing skills further. But we cannot deny a fact that working in team or collaborating with team members is a stronger skill that can strengthen your PR skills, understand people better, help you progress and guide you with firsthand knowledge and advice.

Intelligent people love working alone because it allows them to be in tune with their inner creative selves. They can introspect different issues in a field and even think out of the box. When there are so many people around, it is difficult to think quietly and creatively because there’s chaos all around.

Working alone puts you in control of decision making and workflow, which eliminates interpersonal conflicts and can increase productivity and job satisfaction.

Teamwork involves working together with a group of individuals towards a common objective. It emphasizes collaboration, cooperation, and mutual support. On the other hand, individual work requires working alone, taking sole responsibility for the task, and making independent decisions.

A study revealed that intelligent people prefer to be alone, tend to have fewer friends and they choose to be less social than those who scored less on the intelligence scale. Interestingly, they are contended fully in content and in sync with secluded lifestyle.

The more people work together, the more they can accomplish during each day. As a result, the quality of the final product is usually better – even if individual efforts are not wildly superior to each other.

I think anxiety may also lead to a preference for independent work. People with anxiety may feel more comfortable and in control when they are working alone. Anxiety can make people feel vulnerable and exposed, and working independently can provide a sense of safety and security that may be lacking in a group or team setting. This can be especially true for people who suffer from social anxiety, who may find it difficult to interact with others in a professional or social setting.

Also, people with anxiety may be more sensitive to criticism or negative feedback. When working in a group or team, it can be difficult to avoid criticism or negative feedback, which can be particularly challenging for people with anxiety. By working independently, people with anxiety may be able to avoid these types of situations, which can reduce their stress and anxiety levels.

I think some people having problems to work with group. They want things to go their ways and they can do better alone. They are not the flexible ones because they have their own systems, and they want to stick to these. Someone said: If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with other. I want to go fast and far at the same time. It’s left to an intelligent individual’s choice whether to work individually or with a group. There are also geniuses, the creative mind level is higher than others, but they still need help from others to finish their projects.

Some people are loners. They are self-engrossed and prefer to be left alone.

Here are few world famous brands and their hidden meaning.

The name Adidas is derived from that of its founder, Adolf Dassler. The company’s logo has changed over time, but it’s always included three stripes. The current configuration is three stripes at an angle which together form a triangle. It symbolises a mountain, which in turn represents the challenges which all athletes need to face and conquer.

Rob Jenoff the designer who created with the world-famous Apple company logo, has explained how he came up with the idea: he bought a whole bag of apples, placed them in a bowl, and spent time drawing them for a week, trying to break the image down into something simple. Taking a bite out of an apple was part of the experiment, and completely by coincidence he realised that ’bite’ sounded exactly the same as the computer term ’byte’. A byte is considered as a unit of memory size of computer. Wow!! What a coincidence, and creativity that is.

Amazon has been using its current logo for 18 years. The logo illustrates that company sells everything from A to Z. The arrow in the logo points from the “A” to the “Z”.  The arrow at the bottom also symbolizes a smile, portraying that their customers are happy after using their service. The logo shows that Amazon can get anything for you at your doorstep; all you need is to log on their website.

The white and blue checker boxes represent a white/silver propeller blade spinning against a clear blue sky which portrays a happy drive on bright day. BMW logo also symbolizes the Bavarian flag colors which represents their origin. Also, it’s often supposed that the central part of the BMW logo symbolizes the rotating blades of an airplane, which are in line with the company’s earlier history of aviation technology.

The iconic Coca-Cola logo has changed many times over the past 126 years in design; however, you may be surprised to know the brand’s world-famous font of script and wave have always looked exactly as they do now. In the world-famous logo of the Coca-Cola Company, in the space between the letters ’O’ and ’L’, one can clearly see the Danish flag. The company has nonetheless used this as part of its marketing campaigns in the Scandinavian country. Just for the sake of the history of this brand, when it was introduced in 1885, it was marketed as a health tonic to cure a range of ills, including headaches, low sex drive and addiction. Coke started out with coca which is the extract of cocaine as a key ingredient, along with the kola nut. Hence it was named as Coca-Cola.

The FedEx logo was designed in 1994 by Linden Leader & Landor Associates, at first appears simple and straightforward. However, if you look at the white space between the “E” and “X” you can see a right-facing arrow. This “hidden” arrow was intended to be a subliminal symbol for speed and accuracy. FedEx assures on time and safe and sound delivery of courier.

The logo of Hyundai appears as “H” the first letter of the brand name. But, the South Korean conglomerate Hyundai’s logo symbolises two people: a client and a representative of the company shaking hands. People shake hands in contentment.

The logo of the South Korean electronics company LG portrays a person’s face, which is the central body region of sense. According to the company, the logo represents its aspiration to maintain everyday human relations with its customers intact. It believes in nurturing relationships with its customers which is a crucial part of growing a successful business.

The Pepsi logo portrays the globe with twirling red, white, & blue color design in a sphere-like shape. It is considered one of the world’s most recognizable corporate trademarks. It’s hard to believe, but Pepsi paid over a million dollars to create this special logo with its secret meanings. The new special design hints at mysterious and secretive themes, such as the Earth’s magnetic field, Feng shui, Pythagoras, geodynamics, the theory of relativity, and the golden ratio. The designer has explained that this logo also makes reference to the Mona Lisa, the Parthenon, and even René Descartes. The red, white and blue colors have always represented the American flag.

In 1990, Toyota debuted the three overlapping Ellipses logo on American vehicles. The Toyota Ellipses symbolize the unification of the hearts of our customers and the heart of Toyota products. The background space represents Toyota’s technological advancement and the boundless opportunities ahead.

I am sure many people like me must have wondered what the logo of Wikipedia means. Each piece bears a glyph (a character or a sign) symbolizing the multilingualism of Wikipedia. As with the Latin letter ‘W’, these glyphs are in most cases the first glyph or glyphs of the name “Wikipedia” rendered in that language. The empty space at the top represents the incomplete nature of the mission of Wikipedia; there are more articles and languages yet to be added. I find this logo most interesting. There are currently 301 language editions of Wikipedia. It is owned by Wikimedia Foundation.

Taking a walk a day keeps the doctor away, because both physically and mentally it keeps you fit. The early morning walk is power packed with first rays of the sun which are the reservoir of energy, which is why people who take their morning walks are most energetic, productive and cheerful throughout the day. We all are aware that walking helps from helping lose weight, getting de-stressed to lowering blood pressure and reducing risk of many chronic diseases. Walking shores up your bones. It can stop the loss of bone mass for those with osteoporosis. Walking lowers Alzheimer’s risk. A study from the University of Virginia Health System in Charlottesville found that men between the ages of 71 and 93 who walked more than a quarter of a mile per day had half the incidence of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, compared to those who walked less.

For women post menopause, 30 minutes of walking each day reduces their risk of hip fractures by 40 percent. Walking supports your joints. The majority of joint cartilage has no direct blood supply. It gets its nutrition from synovial or joint fluid that circulates as we move. Impact that comes from movement or compression, such as walking, squashes the cartilage bringing oxygen and nutrients into the area. If you don’t walk, joints are deprived of life-giving fluid, which can speed deterioration. Just a caution for what is called a brisk walk: it is a relative term, since “brisk” for some, is either slow or quite speedy for others, depending on levels of fitness. One measure to quantify brisk walking is “steps per minute,” and 100 steps per minute is considered moderate intensity or brisk walking. A precious advice to all is: listen to your body, your body keeps giving the signal for slowing down, warming up or speeding up.

Walking is free, all it requires a good pair of shoes. Besides great physical benefits, walking improves creativity in human.

Steve Jobs, the late co-founder of Apple, was known for his walking meetings. Jobs used to invite people to walk with him, various matters were discussed during the walk and post walk decisions were informed to the concerned people. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has also been seen holding meetings on foot because he believes that pacing back and forth on occasion has tremendous good ideas coming to mind. A new study by Stanford researchers provides an explanation for this. Creative thinking improves while a person is walking and shortly thereafter.  The study found that walking indoors or outdoors similarly boosts creative inspiration. The act of walking itself, and the environment is the main factor. The study found that creativity levels are consistently and significantly higher for those walk compared to those who simply sit. Walking helps improve learning, memory and cognition.

Albert Einstein the great theoretical physicist and father of modern physics, who was also a prolific writer of non-scientific work, often felt like he needed to take a long walk on the beach to introspect and work out complex problems in his head. He was advised by his doctors in the late 18th century that living by the beach to improve overall health. Einstein used to love his beach walks, because it helped to solve a lot of complex problem.

Friedrich Nietzsche is known as one of Western culture’s most influential philosophers. And he did much more than just philosophize. He was also an accomplished classical scholar, professor, poet and avid author. The secret of his creativity was – he used to walk each day and during those walks he used to get inspirational thoughts, on which he created classical writing.

Charles Dickens is known for his attention to detail in his lengthy novels. A lesser known fact is how Dickens got to know London inside and out- twenty-mile-long speed walks in the middle of the night! His walks served him for more than data-gathering. Dickens claimed that writing didn’t come easy to him and it put him under immense stress. He would go on five-hour-long walks to relieve this anxiety. His walks grew so long that his friends thought he was mentally ill. After writing from 9 in the morning to 2 in the afternoon, he would go for a long walk almost a 20- or 30-miles. This was routine for him. When Dickens couldn’t sleep at night, which used to happen frequently, he would go strolling on London’s streets until dawn. Dickens walked so much that his worried friends felt he had a mania for walking. But clearly, the walking worked; Dickens was prolific, writing more than a dozen major and well-regarded novels, several short story collections, a few plays, and even some non-fiction books.

Aristotle, the famous Greek philosopher, empiricist, and pupil to Plato, conducted his lectures while walking the grounds of his school in Athens. His followers who quite literally followed him as he walked were even known as the travelers. Really, it’s so inspiring to know the great minds utilized the cognitive benefits of walking while thinking, and it’s so incredible. Imagine walking with your teacher, while listening to his teaching.

It’s so very inspiriting to know that the poet William Wordsworth walked nearly 175 thousand miles throughout his life while preserving a prolific writing career! He managed these two seemingly opposing habits for two reasons. First, for writing poems requires shorter time than novels but poems require rhythm, which he would get with his style of walk with a tempo.   Second, Wordsworth’s walking was writing, in a way, he believed the act of walking was inseparable from the act of writing poetry. Both writing poetry and walking are rhythmic, both acts engaged meter (meter is a unit of rhythm in poetry, the pattern of the beats. It is also called a foot) and walking is counted in the unit of meter. Wordsworth needed to walk in order to write.

Back to importance of walking: a recent study has found that changing the way you walk can change your mood and boost happiness. While it’s long been known that our mood can affect our posture, as people who are sad often slump their shoulders, and those who are happy tend to have a bounce in their step, researchers have found that the reverse is also true. A slumped, sluggish gait might indicate sadness or distress, while someone with a bounce in her step is clearly in high spirits. But after walking for few minutes, mood boosts up.

Just 30 minutes of walk every day can increase cardiovascular fitness, strengthen bones, reduce excess body fat, and boost muscle power and endurance. It can also reduce your risk of developing conditions such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, memory loss and some cancers. Research shows that regular walking actually modifies the nervous system so much that the walker experiences a decrease in anger and hostility. Walking helps increasing social life, because you get to know new people around – a neighbor, or a good friend, with whom the interaction helps feel connected. What are you waiting for? Put on your shoes and go for your walk because all truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.

Today many large business houses in the world depend on product innovations, functional innovations, cost innovations, marketing innovation, and supply chain innovations – innovations in all areas to cut costs and easily expand globally. Mergers and acquisitions only turn out well if organizations can maintain innovations with what they have bought. To remain relevant in a rapidly changing world companies need a high volume of cost effective innovation. Just as entrepreneurs grow their organizations by innovating, intrapreneurs play a vital role in organizations for supporting growth of business.

Gifford Pinchot III in 1984 defined intrapreneurs as “dreamers” in organizations who do things differently. They are creative and enthusiastic in nature. In 1992, The American Heritage Dictionary acknowledged the popular use of a new word, intrapreneur, to mean “A person within a large corporation who takes direct responsibility for turning an idea into a profitable finished product through confident risk-taking and innovation” Koch (2014) goes further, claiming that intrapreneurs are the “secret weapon” of the business world. Based on these definitions, being an intrapreneur is considered to be beneficial for both intrapreneurs and large organizations. Companies support intrapreneurs with finance and access to corporate resources, while intrapreneurs create innovation for companies.

An intrapreneur acts as an entrepreneur within the boundaries of a large firm, who uses entrepreneurial skills without incurring the risks associated with those activities. Entrepreneurs take risks at their own cost, whereas intrapreneurs take risks at company’s cost. Intrapreneurs are usually employees within a company who are assigned to work on specific projects, and they are instructed to develop the project like an entrepreneur would do. Intrapreneurs usually have the resources and capabilities of the firm at their disposal. Having innovative and talented leadership is need of the hour in big organizations. Researchers have constantly found that at the root of every successful corporate innovation, there are one or more passionate intrapreneurs. Intrapreneurs have the perseverance, courage and shrewdness to get to turn opportunities into profitable realities.

Mr. S. Sivakumar who is today the Divisional Chief Executive of ITC Agri Business Division is credited for the e-Choupal initiative. The e-Choupal was developed and executed under Sivakumar’s leadership of the Agri Business Division. Sivakumar worked with a farmers’ cooperative for six years before joining ITC in 1989. ITC’s e-Choupal links directly with rural farmers via the Internet for procurement of agricultural and aquaculture products like soybeans, wheat, coffee, and prawns. Thus making life of farmers much easier without middlemen in the supply.

Organizations encourage innovations among their people because they understand that there is no great deal in blocking new ideas and suggestion from people. Intrapreneurship flourishes on the foundation of relationships and not on processes. The relationship quality between an intrapreneurial team and the management of the organization is important. When organizations understand the value the efforts of intrapreneurs to strengthen the value of products and services, the outcomes are constructive. The management is expected to help the intrapreneurs to find resources and guide them around political dangers. They must defend them by fostering talent and friendlier policies.

Sometimes, intrapreneurship happens by accident. Dr. Spencer Silver, a scientist at 3M, was attempting to create an extremely strong adhesive to use in aerospace technology. Instead, he accidentally created a light adhesive that stuck to surfaces well but didn’t leave a nasty residue.

Instead of hurling away this idea because it didn’t solve the problem at hand, he stuck with it until he found a use for it. After many years of persistence and spreading the word it finally clicked with someone else, Art Fry, another 3M scientist. He attended one of the seminars of Dr.Silvers, he also sung in a church choir in St. Paul, Minnesota.  One little problem he continually had to deal with was accidentally losing his song page markers in his hymn book while singing, with them falling out of the hymnal.  From this, he eventually had the stroke of genius to use some of Silver’s adhesive to help keep the slips of paper in the hymnal.  Fry then suggested to Silver that they were using the adhesive backwards.  Instead of sticking the adhesive to the bulletin board, they should “put it on a piece of paper and then we can stick it to anything. And, they began to develop a product together. Post-It notes were born and today you find them in all offices in the world.

It requires a great amount of imagination and understanding the value of a really new idea, and more importantly it requires a great process. Ideas look different on papers, and different when executed. Another fact is that many ideas remain on the paper, because to execute them it takes courage. An effective intrapreneureal program is a cultural shift. It involves educating both intrapreneurs and potential sponsors on their roles and effective behavior. Because these roles involve trust, not everyone can find a sponsor. Also, a company generates more good ideas in a month than it can implement in a decade. Only few ideas are shaped.

Can you imagine that a guard at Massachusetts Department of Correction suggested a change in the way the department stored their inmate photos. Instead of taking pictures with film and storing them the old fashioned way, the guard suggested to use digital cameras to create a database for image storing. The department has sixteen correctional facilities and in the first year of implementation alone it saved $56,000 dollars on film and eased a lot of clerical headache.

Potential intrapreneurs exist in every organization; in most they don’t come out in open because of politics brewing in the culture. The terms entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs are used interchangeably because they both contain the same meaning. However, the fact is that there exists a fine line between these two terms. As business leaders strive for increased competitiveness, creating an entrepreneurial culture has become an important facet in business world. In the current business environment, the term entrepreneurial has come to mean more than just the business acumen required to turn an idea into an enterprise.

In Kinetic India, one of their recent models, the Zing, was an idea that came from one of their employees. He suggested that the mobike must have a mobile charger built in it. The idea was innovative and was highly appreciated. The research and development (R&D) team researched and implemented the idea.

When intrapreneurs believe in change and do not fear failure, they discover new ideas and look for such opportunities that can benefit the whole organization. The job of an intrapreneur is extremely challenging; hence they are appreciated and rewarded by the organisation accordingly. From past decade, innovation and creativity has become a trend that large corporations look out for intrapreneurs, to bring operational excellence and gain competitive advantage. A big part of driving an entrepreneurial culture is to foster innovations.

Organizations must empower people. People must feel empowered to take the lead and create positive change. Culture is a shared phenomenon, and although leaders play a key role in shaping it, they set examples by their behavior.

Creative and effective organizations do not emerge by accident. They require leaders to drive and control deliberate changes in structure, culture, and processes in order to transform them into creative, effective, and productive ones. Even though many organizations look for competitive advantage in their structure, strategy, technology, and culture, leadership is the most important source of competitive advantage. Organizational leaders usually decide what happens in the organization and give the direction, vision, and momentum that bring success. Therefore, leaders are the catalyst that create and manage the entrepreneurial culture.

A well-written and well documented performance appraisal is of great importance in all organizations, no matter what type of business it is in. Employee appraisal can serve as a platform for employees to bring forth questions and concerns. This can help increase employee perseverance, creativity, and job satisfaction. Reviews allow the organizations to evaluate employees for increased responsibilities and future promotions. The PA acts as a road map for both organization and its employees.

PAs help organizations with useful information such as employee’s skill, knowledge, capability their knowledge up gradation, attitude, aptitude, health changes if any etc. In fact PA helps to improve the communication system of the organization and to review the potentiality of employees so that their future capability is anticipated. It helps in setting marketing and sales goals, operational goals, outsourcing function, infrastructural capability, R&D etc.

Rank and Yank is a term used to describe a process by which a company ranks its employees against each other, and terminates the employment of the people at the lowest end of the ranking (that’s the yank). The term probably came into being to describe the process used at General Electric (GE), and is associated with former CEO Jack Welch. In his view, the real term was “differentiation.” He looked at appraisals for building great thorough consistency, transparency and openness. Welch has written that “It’s about aligning performance with the organization’s mission and values. It’s about making sure that all employees know where they stand.” What happens to the yanks? According to Welch, the employees at bottom line 10% employees (the poor performers) will never feel let down, when PAs are done on regular intervals and are transparent.

A transparent, ethical PA system is never demoralizing or inhuman. What’s inhumane is failing to make the organization’s standards and values clear and transparent and letting people know where they stand. According to Welch, managers owe frankness and sincerity to their subordinates; they must never create environment in which the subordinates keep guessing about what the organization thinks of them. Employees must know exactly what organization feels about them.

During the hiring process, recruiters and hiring managers must tell employees when and how they will receive performance appraisals. Employees trust employers to follow throughout all promises; from paying employees on time, to giving employees holidays, enhancing career, and timely evaluation of their performance. Therefore, conducting systematic and timely performance appraisals is an important consideration when it comes to placing value on the company’s human capital.

Following are some specific tips for drafting better performance evaluations:

• Be specific and avoid generalization: Phrases such as ‘maintain time limit’, ‘work harder,’ ‘increase production’ are not specific. They create ambiguity in minds of employees. Be specific by mentioning exactness. Such as ‘increase sales by 20% in the next three months,’ ‘you need to work from 9am to 5 pm,’ these are measurable objectives, and assist both the employee and employer.
• Focus on what you want the employee to do, not what you want him/her to be: A performance evaluation is not about finding flaws in an employee’s personality or discussing only weaknesses. You cannot change the employee’s basic personality traits in a performance evaluation. Managers must objectively state exactly what is expected out of the employee.
• Use real details: Use the correct and full name of the employee, his joining date, cadre, salary, exact designation, detailed duties, family background etc. Be specific.  Be clear about his Key Result Areas (KRA) what is expected from the employee and the date it is expected. For documenting performance issues, get as detailed as possible instead of merely using phrases such as ‘is a trouble maker’ instead, document incidents where the employee’s attitude was inappropriate, stating the date, place, incident, witnesses, behavior(s), and the unfavorable effect of the employee’s conduct on those around him, as well as the specific organizational policies and procedures to be used when employee’s behavior is violated.
• Set only a limited number of objectives: The employee needs to be able to do the work; people can’t achieve an objective that is not within their scope of influence or current capability. The employee must have the tools, resources, and access required to get the work done. Expectations must be well defined, and the employee must have sufficient time and assistance to meet milestones. Remember, more than seven objectives are excessive.
• Appraisal biases: should be avoided as far as possible. In performance appraisal halo bias is termed as Matthew Effect. It is said to occur where employees tend to keep receiving the same appraisal results, year in and year out judged or based on an early performance evaluation. If an employee did well on the early evaluation, he will be more trusted than other employees and all of his work will be seen in a favorable light. If he did poorly, he will have a very hard time earning trust or a positive evaluation from his boss. Their appraisal results tend to become self-fulfilling: if they have done well, they will continue to do well; if they have done poorly, they will continue to do poorly. The Matthew Effect suggests that no matter how hard an employee strives, their past appraisal records will prejudice their future attempts to improve.

Often organizations overlook importance of timely performance appraisal, though it is  powerful for enhancing employee satisfaction and retention. The timely and accurate performance reviews are a key factor in retaining a satisfied and productive workforce. Feedback, whether positive or negative, can help employees understand the company’s expectations and perceptions and provides a pathway to improvement. Providing timely feedback lets good employees know you appreciate their accomplishments. While identifying what an employee can or needs to do better is a critical function of performance reviews, other equally critical yet often overlooked functions include showing the company’s appreciation for employees who are successful, showing passion and accountability for their work, and letting them know they are important to the success of the company.

Training and development is another area which can be used with help of PA. Training and development are used together to bring about the overall familiarization, improvement, and education of an organization’s employees.  In general, training programs have very specific and quantifiable goals, such as operating a particular piece of machinery, understanding a specific process, or performing certain procedures with great precision. On the other hand, developmental programs concentrate on broader skills that are applicable to a wider variety of situations, such as decision making, leadership skills, and goal setting.
Google schedules their performance reviews twice a year; major one at the end of the year and a smaller one mid-year. Each review consists of a self-assessment, a set of peer reviews, and if an employee is applying for a promotion, reasons for why he should be promoted to the next level.  Each review component is submitted via an online tool.  Around performance review time, it’s not exceptional to see many engineers taking a day or more just to write the reviews through the tool. In the self-assessment, the employee summarizes his major accomplishments and contributions since the last review. He is asked to describe his strengths and areas for improvement; the employee is expected to frame them with respect to the job expectations described in his career ladder.  For peer reviews, employees are expected to choose around 3-8 peers (fellow engineers, product managers, or others that can comment on their work) to write their peer reviews.  Often, managers assign additional individuals to write peer reviews for one of their reports, particularly newer or younger employees who may be less familiar with the process are chosen. Peers comment on an employee’s contribution in a project, on his strengths, and on areas for improvement.  If an employee applies for a promotion, the peer reviews become more relevant for considering his promotion.

An accurate performance reviews is critical because it helps exceptional employees being  rewarded with exceptional performance ratings and the benefits that go along with those ratings, while poor performers should be rated and rewarded accordingly. Employees talk among themselves and share information. It can be extremely demoralizing for a high-performing employee to learn that marginal or poor performers have received the same rating, pay raise, and other benefits.

Finally, change is constant in business; the PA system should also change accordingly.

Since the 60s the idea of single monoculture is on a slow extinction.  It has given way to pluralistic society that continues to evolve through cultural integration and influence.  These changes are evident in fashions, dietary habit, entertainment, music, literature and sports.  Diversity adds spice to life.

Distinguished management experts have asserted that diversity in organization is a good thing because it forces teamwork, because people know that they must cooperate with each-other to get results, and for a cohesive work culture. Designing and maintaining a consistent workforce with diverse features is a tough managerial task.  Diversity in organization occurs when the organization hires people who have a broad range of background, when the demographics vary on a large scale with difference in age sex, culture and physical challenges.  Cultural ethnicity is one major issue, which needs to be handled with care.  When the pool of resource is large and diverse in nature maintaining equality is a hurricane task.  The reality of globalization is that the boundaries of nations have shrunk, communication speed has increased and the entire world has become a global village.  It is important therefore we respect, accept and celebrate diversity.

Chester Bernard, author of the management classic ‘The functions of the executive’ has described informal organization as any joint personal activity without conscious joint purpose, even though contributing to joint result.  Thus the informal relationships established in-group of people during various celebrations like a dance party, a birthday celebration or a wedding anniversary may aid in achievement of the organizational goals. Globalization, migration and communication challenge organizations to develop broad perspectives of management.  Organizations have to mix and merge people from different parts of world for various operations.  People accept change in cultural diversity if it is a non-issue.  Organizations should constantly but subtly   coach its people to accept change in and around them.

Progressive companies all over the world recognize the advantages of integrating worker from culturally diverse backgrounds. These companies view diversity as a business plan as in today’s global marketplace companies interact with different clients with cultures and different code of conduct.  In the early stages, International business was conducted with an ethnocentric outlook that means the orientation and type of operation was based on the parent company.  The modern multinational corporations have geocentric orientation. The total organization is viewed as an independent system operating in many courtiers.  The relationships between headquarters and subsidiaries are collaborative.  Communication flowing from both directions encourages viewpoints of workers at all levels.  Furthermore, managers of different nationals occupy key positions.

In short, the orientation of multi-national corporations is truly international and goes beyond a narrow nationalistic viewpoint. MNCs have recognized the business opportunities in many different countries.  It can raise money for its operations throughout the world.  Moreover, multinationals firms benefit by being able to establish production facilities in countries where their products can be manufactured more effectively and efficiently.  Companies with worldwide operations sometimes have access to natural resources and materials that may be available to domestic firms only.  Also a large MNC can recruit management and other professionals from a worldwide labor pool.   Companies have recognized the various pros of diversity.

 Increase in Creativity: When different people are put together towards a common solution there is no one best answer to any question because the organization can obtain more and more ideas.  Different cultures of the employees can offer insightful alternatives to a problem.

 Increase in Productivity: When people of variety of culture and variety of backgrounds are made to work together it increases their productivity exponentially. This happens because it kills monotony of work culture, brings freshness in work atmosphere.  Different people have different styles of performing work.  Every employee motivates the other with his difference of style.

Negotiation skills: Negotiating is a part and parcel of life.  Everyone is busy negotiating on some or the other matter.  Every culture has it own philosophy on negotiation.  Americans hate negotiating, they rarely negotiate; you will find them negotiating except for buying a car or a home.  But when Americans have to work with different cultural backgrounds of co-workers they realize the art of negotiation.  Negotiation should always be a win-win situation.  There should be a common ground for negotiation; it should not leave a feeling of hurt on any party.  Germans are called tactful negotiators.  So this can be learnt when diverse people come together to work.

New Business Processes:  Diverse people have diverse attitudes to business.  Companies need to adapt newer business skills and newer processes.  The cross-cultural workforce can bring in better and newer work processes.

New language skills: People can learn new languages while working in organization from their co-workers.  By learning each other’s language the barriers can be reduced.  The companies pay a high sum to language interpreters.  By motivating people who love to learn new languages, companies can curtail expenses.  By learning new languages people can get insight of other countries.  They can improve their communication skills.  After all multi linguistics are always preferred by an organization.

But, Prof.Stephen Bainbridge of University of Illinois Law School argues that homogeneity should be maintained at the workplace as it increases productivity and profitability.  He further states that people feel at home while working with people like them therefore they work more effectively.   He recognizes that people have problem communicating their idea and emotions to people from diverse cultures and backgrounds.   It is a waste of time and energy to work on diverse workforce he comments.

 Prof.Ron Burn a Professor of Sociology and Strategy at the Chicago Graduate School of Business has published several papers on diversity.  He is of the opinion that diverse workgroups are more innovative as they not only have more variety in experience but they are also connected to different source of information in their environment.

Kent State University located in the heartland of America allows students, faculties and staff to learn about variety of cultures from around the world.  Dr.Sheryl Smith – an Associate Dean of students and Director of Campus Life says that the university environment encourages students to explore and understand and appreciate the difference and similarities among cultures especially with diverse student organizations   through events sponsored by these groups.  Students, faculties and staff can experience food, music, dance and sports from wide variety of culture.  The philosophy is simple: students will have to work some day with people of different culture and they will encounter differences.  They should feel at ease and poise when they enter their professions.

Managing cultural diversity is simple.  We all need to address the myths, stereotypes and cultural differences that interfere with our daily chores.  The age-old gender fact that only male and females exist in organizational workforce has lost ground; today we have gay and transgender individuals making vital contributions to our economy. Nations and workforce are both becoming more diverse. The share of people of different color, cast, creed, religion, tradition, language, diction, practice, and ethnicity is part of organizational workforce.

 We are witnessing more women entering the labor force; while taking increasingly the forefront. They are occupying vital roles and are the decision makers in more organizations. It is an open fact that businesses that embrace diversity have a more solid footing in the marketplace than others. Whatever color, black or brown or white.  That is it.   The word “global village” may appropriately describe the world we live in today.  The fiber optics, aerospace and computers link all that exists is a part of our lives. The geographical boundaries are shrinking day by day.   Let’s give up obsolescence and move on to improve productivity.

Medical practitioners have dispensed with the value of chronological age as a variable to use in research. We get bogged down with our chronological age – feeling younger or older. Well, another drawback of the chronological age is that it cannot be experimentally manipulated. And, why should anyone do that?

When life touches fifty, for some, working on a same project or job for too many years becomes wearisome, for others mundane activities are boring, while for some restless souls retirement just isn’t an option. And for few, inspiration hits them late in life. What do we call these people? Seasoned, experienced, mature, established, old, aged, older, too old – these are people to be correctly tagged as “Late Bloomers.”  The Wikipedia describes them as “a people whose talents or capabilities are developed at a later stage in life”. But whatever you do, don’t call them old. These entrepreneurs, scientists, artists, creative lot of people waited until after 50 to start their art/business/hobby/passion, and they’re adding gold to their golden years.

Late, Captain Krishnan Nair, who set up the first Leela Hotel, The Leela Kempinski in Mumbai, did it at the age of 65. He then said “I still feel that I am a beginner and have yet to learn a lot.” Actor Boman Irani entered the filmdom at 44. He once said in his interview “I have been a late bloomer in every aspect of my life. Earlier, I had got into photography at 32-33. I didn’t expect cinema to take on my life,” Irani, caught people’s attention with his role in Munnabhai MBBS. Peter Roget published his giant list of words as a book, Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases at age 73. Perhaps the oldest known athlete to win an Olympic medal was a Swedish shooter by the name of Oscar Swahn who had two medals won in the Summer Olympics when he was 72 years old. Corporate guru and author Gurcharan Das took up writing as his principal occupation in his 50’s. Col. Harland Sanders who is famous for Kentucky-fried Chicken got success when he was 65.

Can accomplishment and meaningfulness in life be attached to age? The answer obviously is “No.” And what’s life when you look back and deeply regret of not having done things which you wanted to. The reasons for not doing things which you wanted to could be many. Sometimes genuine, while other times it could be fear of failure. Fear of losing some valued thing in life. These days when the life spans are growing longer, that means we are living longer than ever, what is the rush of achieving everything when you are young?  When you do things which you enjoy the most, which are truly creative, it makes you fresh, bouncy and gives you exuberance and energy.

I think that it is never too late to begin doing things which you wanted to at the (so-called) old age. Sometime in your life, at whatever age you are put yourself at the top of your list, prioritize, and do what you’ve always wanted to do. No matter if you’re in your 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, or beyond, you still have an opening, a chance to do what you wanted to do. Becoming successful does not have an age bar. It is not limited to one certain age or even one career. Instead of getting bored, feeling left out, feeling lonely in the race of life try to re-invent you. Give yourself some valued time, love yourself, and revive your interest. The most successful people are the ones who have reinvented themselves, tried, failed, and tried again. Let’s redefine the word failure as simply a plan that didn’t work the first time around. It may just need a few twists, tweaks and determination.

Another point of view is that of specialization; it is some sort of compulsion. People usually have many interests and passions. Why should we get trapped in the “specialization” format? Why should we kill our curiosity and astonishment? Let’s not get disparaged by some specialization in life. You might have too many hobbies, interests to settle in life. Go out, discover, experiment, give your life some more chances and just ENJOY every single moment of your life. Make your mantra “Better late than never.”