How to Leave Work at Work

Some jobs have very clear lines between when you’re “on” and when you’re “off,” while in others the lines are blurred — or potentially nonexistent. That makes not being distracted by work, especially mentally, a major challenge.

This can lead to sitting at dinner while your daughter tells a story about her day, but instead of hearing her you’re wondering whether an email from your boss came through. It can mean exchanging the time you could have spent on sleep, exercise, or talking with your spouse glued to your laptop. And it can look like keeping your work life in order, while your finances or home are a mess because you don’t take time to pay bills, plan for retirement, or tidy up.

As I shared in my article on boundaries, what is possible can vary depending on your particular job, work culture, and coworkers. But in most cases, you can reduce how distracted you feel by work during times when you’re not working.

As a time management coach, I’ve found these four steps can help. I encourage you to challenge yourself to gradually implement these changes and see how much you can leave your work at work — both physically and mentally — in 2020.

Step 1: Define “After Hours”

If you have a traditional 9-to-5 job, your hours are set for you. But if you work in an environment with flexible hours, you’ll need to think through when you want to be on and off the clock. If your employer has a certain number of hours that you’re expected to work each week, start by seeing how to fit those hours around your fixed personal commitments, like taking your kids to school or extracurricular activities, making a certain train, or attending an exercise class you really enjoy. When do you need to start and stop to put in the proper work time?

On the other hand, if your company doesn’t have a specific amount of time that you need to work — say, you freelance or have a results-only work environment — but your job still takes over almost all of your waking hours, take the reverse approach. Think through how many hours you want for activities like sleep, exercise, family, friends, cleaning, finances, etc. Then see how much time you need to reserve on a daily and weekly basis to fit in those personal priorities. That then defines the parameters of when you want to be “off hours.”

Step 2: Have Mental Clarity

Next, make sure you have mental clarity on what needs to get done and when you will complete it. This includes having a place where you write down the many tasks that you need to do, whether that’s in a notebook, a task management app, a project management system, or in your calendar. The important point is that you’re not lying in bed at night trying to remember everything on your mental to-do list.

Then once you have this list, plan out your work. That could mean setting aside time in your schedule to work on a report in advance, putting time in your calendar to prep for your next day’s meetings, or just plotting out specific hours that you will reserve for getting your own work done versus attending meetings or responding to other people’s requests. This planning reduces anxiety that something will fall through the cracks or that you’ll miss a deadline.

The final part of increasing your mental clarity is to have an end-of-workday wrap-up. During this time, look over your daily to-do list and calendar to make sure that everything that absolutely must get done — specifically, those tasks that had a hard deadline — were completed. You also can do a quick scan of your email to ensure any urgent messages are attended to before you leave the office. For some people, it works well to do this as the last thing they do that day, say 15 to 30 minutes before heading out. For others, it’s better to put a reminder in their calendars for an hour or two before they need to leave. This gives them a more generous time period to wrap items up.

Step 3: Communicate with Your Colleagues

In some job situations, you can set a definite after-hours boundary like, after 6 pm, I’m offline. But in other situations, the lines are much blurrier.

For those in situations where you can have a clear dividing line between work and home, I would encourage you to directly communicate that with your colleagues. For example, you might say, “I typically leave work at 6 pm, so if you contact me after that time, you can expect to hear back from me sometime after 9 am the next business day.” Or in some cases your actions can simply set that tone. If they never hear from you between 6 pm and 9 am, that will set the expectation that you’re not available.

But for others, who have jobs that require more constant connectivity, you may want to set some guidelines to control how people reach you, thereby reducing unwanted interruptions. For example, you could say, “It’s fine to text me during the day with questions, but after 6 pm, please send me an email instead of a text unless the situation is truly urgent.” Similarly, if you have a very flexible schedule where you take extended breaks during the day for things like going to the gym or picking your kids up after school, encourage people to reach out to you in specific, preferred ways that you establish. For instance, “There are some times during the day when I may be away from my computer. If you need a fast response, call or text me.” In these scenarios, you’ll know that only the most important work will take you away from your personal or family obligations via an urgent call or text, and you can turn your attention to non-urgent work once you have the bandwidth.

Step 4: Get Work Done at Work

It may seem crazy to say this, but I want to encourage you to give yourself permission to do work at work. For many, they perceive “real work” as something they reserve for post-5 or 6 pm, after everyone else has left the office or for after they’ve tucked their kids in bed for the night. People have this mindset because this time can seem like the few precious hours where no one is dropping by your office or asking you for anything immediately. But if you want to stop feeling distracted by work after hours, you need to actually do your work during the day.

Completing the actions under the mental clarity step will take you a long way forward in that process. Really guard your time. Put in time for project work. Place time in your calendar to answer email. And if follow-through requires going to a place other than your office to work, do it. Make and keep meetings with yourself to knock off tasks. It’s exceptionally difficult — if not impossible — to not be distracted about work when you’re stressed out because you haven’t gotten your work done.

And if you must (or want to) do some work outside of your standard day, make sure that you timebox it. For example, I will work from 8-9 pm tonight then stop. Or, I’ll put in three hours on Saturday from 1-4 pm, but then I won’t think about work before or after. It’s much better to designate a time and stick with it than it is to think about work all night or all weekend and do nothing.

As individuals, we need a mental break to do our best work, and taking time for ourselves — without the distraction of work — can help us become our best selves. I can’t guarantee that thoughts about work will never cross your mind, but with these four steps, you can reduce how much you’re distracted by work after hours.

Source: HBR 03 Feb, 2020

Top Technology Trends for 2020

Practical deployment of Internet of Things (IoT)
IoT is hot but there are not as many mainstream applications today as some predicted. We anticipate that with 5G, the number of connected devices and mainstream IoT applications will reach scale.
Edge computing is a topology where information processing and content collection and delivery are placed closer to the sources of the information, with the idea that keeping traffic local and distributed will reduce latency. This includes all the technology on the Internet of Things (IoT). Empowered edge looks at how these devices are increasing and forming the foundations for smart spaces, and moves key applications and services closer to the people and devices that use them.

Evolution of health care
Under the theme of prevention, digital health care has seen much innovation. In the U.S., startups 23andMe and Color lead in genome analysis, while Genesis Healthcare stands out in Japan and Genoplan in Korea. These companies use genomic analysis to learn of diseases and provide prevention methods.

The evolution of AI will improve the quality of treatment. In 2020, many medical images taken using MRI, CT scans, and X-rays will be diagnosed using AI. Startups Enlitic and Zebra Medical Vision stand out as leaders.

Autonomous driving technology
Autonomous driving is already a hot topic, Technology for understanding detailed road conditions by AI is evolving. Startups Prophesee (France), Perceptive Automata (U.S.), and Humanising Autonomy (U.K.) stand out as leaders. They will contribute towards achieving next level products in 2020.

Mobile payments system
In the experience economy, we live in a world of ‘Insta-Everything’. Finance platforms have become so effortless and interoperable that it is easy to innovate and disrupt with a simple idea. An upshot of the app economy is the question of who processes, and makes money, from online payments. The battle between banks, credit card companies, telcos and software companies is going to be a major business story of the decade.

Electric car
There is no escaping the place of the electric car. And in 2020, almost every large car manufacturer will enter the market with larger family cars built for longer distances. It’s not enough anymore to offer the sideshow of a city car. With a host of new cars in a range of sizes, models and charging capacities, prices will drop, and consumers will respond well.  Because of this, 2020 will also mark the first backlash against electrical cars as governments are reducing incentives to protect their revenues and as charge station demand outweighs supply.

eSIM 
In 2020 e-sim technology will become common in both consumer electronics and company related IoT. Users will be able to activate and change subscriptions without having to wait for a new sim-card to arrive by mail or go to a store to pick it up. While digital distribution of mobile subscriptions is available today, the commercial introduction of e-sim will start to speed up the transition from physical to digital retail, and we can expect to see a number of new eSIM services and apps launch in the market in the coming year.

Autonomous things
Autonomous things, which include drones, robots, ships and appliances, exploit AI to perform tasks usually done by humans. This technology operates on a spectrum of intelligence ranging from semi-autonomous to fully autonomous and across a variety of environments including air, sea and land. The automation of these things goes beyond the automation provided by rigid programming models, and they exploit AI to deliver advanced behaviors that interact more naturally with their environments and with people.
As technology capability improves, regulation permits and social acceptance grows, more autonomous things will be deployed in uncontrolled public spaces.

Connected Retail
The combination of the online and offline worlds in retail will also increase in 2019. About two years after the takeover of Whole Foods by Amazon, digital technologies are increasingly being tested in the Amazon universe. In addition, other (stationary) retailers are expanding their digital expertise, driven by technologies such as AR. Pure players are pushing into the market and using flagship stores both for a special customer experience (Amazon, bonprix, Mister Spex) and recently for end-customer sale. In addition, the digital technologies will be connected to the digital channels at the offline POS.

You can over­come fear and anx­i­ety

You can’t over­come any­thing un­til you ac­tu­ally look at what it is. You can’t over­come your fear un­til you know what it is you’re afraid of, or why you’re afraid. What most of us are scared of, at the deep­est level, is death, ex­tinc­tion. This is pure Dar­win­ism. Our core in­stinct is to sur­vive. This is true for a mos­quito, an earth­worm, a hu­man be­ing. With most things we are afraid of, let us pic­ture them tak­ing place and ask our­selves, ‘Then what?’ In­vari­ably, our an­swer is, ‘I will die.’

It may not al­ways be about death of the phys­i­cal body. We’re also afraid of things such as hu­mil­i­a­tion. If we in­tro­spect about why we are so afraid of be­ing em­bar­rassed, we learn that be­ing deeply hu­mil­i­ated ac­tu­ally feels like we have ceased to ex­ist. Not on a phys­i­cal level, of course, but on a deep, emo­tional level.

On a psy­cho­log­i­cal, spir­i­tual level, we are con­stantly judg­ing our­selves based on how peo­ple re­spond. We are con­stantly read­just­ing our sense of self based on how peo­ple look at us. Slowly, you re­alise that the ul­ti­mate even­tu­al­ity we are afraid of, through fear of fail­ure or hu­mil­i­a­tion, is: ‘I will dis­solve.’ On a very deep level we be­lieve that if peo­ple don’t love us and ac­knowl­edge us, we don’t ex­ist.

Think about the new-age ‘self­ie’ ob­ses­sion. Psy­cho­log­i­cally, it is fas­ci­nat­ing. We don’t just take pic­tures and keep them. No. We go ahead and post them on so­cial me­dia. If no­body likes or com­ments on the pic­ture, in our heart of hearts, we feel we don’t ex­ist. We keep post­ing to re­mind peo­ple, ‘Hey, i ex­ist.’ The more re­sponses i get, the more i ex­ist; the fewer i get, the less i ex­ist.

This is the root of a lot that ails us. When we talk about over­com­ing fear, we have to first break this myth. Mak­ing a fool of our­selves does not oblit­er­ate our ex­is­tence. We have to de­velop courage to take risks, be­cause our aware­ness of our ex­is­tence is no longer de­pen­dent on how peo­ple look at us or re­spond to us. I have to ground my aware­ness in my Self. I have to know who i am, so that re­gard­less of whether you think i’m the biggest fool who has ever walked the face of the earth or whether you think i’m the great­est per­son you have ever met, it does­n’t change how i feel about my­self. That’s the only way to over­come the fear.

The other side to it is to recog­nise that the great­est tragedy is not fail­ing, but never step­ping up to grab the op­por­tu­ni­ties in your life. The great­est tragedy is look­ing back on your life and know­ing you were afraid you were go­ing to fail and peo­ple would laugh at you. That’s the tragedy, that’s some­thing to be afraid of. We have this in­cred­i­ble gift, this in­cred­i­ble life, all these mo­ments brim­ming with po­ten­tial, and it is tragic if we don’t use them.

A beau­ti­ful line in the prayers that we chant here every morn­ing at Par­marth Nike­tan says, ‘Tu akele nahin pyare, Ram tere sath mein’ – You’re not alone, dear one, God is with you. If we can live know­ing that we’re re­ally in the Moth­er’s arms, that we’re be­ing car­ried by God, if we can al­low that faith to take over, it will re­place the fear in our life.

Source: TOI: The Speaking Tree 30 Nov 2019 

How to design an effective campus hiring strategy

Here are some major ways in which HR leaders can design an effective and scalable campus hiring strategy within their respective organizations.

An effective and scalable campus strategy is at the heart of hiring new and talented candidates who possess new-age skills. According to research conducted by Mercer-Mettl, about 74 percent organizations today reported that talent acquisition is still a challenge for them. In 2019, 67 percent organizations said campus hiring is the best channel to source talent.

But companies face a number of road blocks in the campus hiring process. There is a three-part challenge that companies have to navigate – each visit to a campus for a pre-placement talk or to screen candidates requires aligning leadership schedules, navigating logistics and investing time, one campus at a time. In addition to that, companies spend time conducting structured interview and shortlisting candidates. 

In this age of intense competition for highly-skilled talent, HR and business leaders are grappling with the challenge of creating an effective hiring strategy that would also be suitable for the long-term in a sustainable way. In order to optimize their time and effort, leaders need to know which campuses to target and how.

During a People Matters & Mercer-Mettl Webcast on “Getting the most out of your campus hiring programs: Access candidate fit with technology,” Siddhartha Gupta, Chief Executive Officer, Mercer-Mettl, and Vachaspati Saxena, Head Talent Acquisition, General Electrics discussed the ways in which TA leaders can formulate a campus hiring tactic that would be based on four core pillars that can make or break the campus hiring strategy. 

The first steps

“While hiring laterally can help filling the positions faster, campus is really where the organizations get built,” said Vachaspati Saxena, Head Talent Acquisition, General Electrics Technology Center. Siddhartha Gupta, CEO, Mercer-Mettl kickstarted the discussion by noting that the fundamental question that organizations must answer is whether they need fresh talent and for what purpose. 

Understanding which competencies you are hiring for can then determine as to which campuses you want to go to, Gupta added, addressing the HR leaders. 

The four pillars include: 

Building campus intelligence 

Once HR leaders have identified the job roles they are looking to fill and understood the competencies and skills they are looking for, the next step is to build campus intelligence. 

The four Ws can help HR leaders in understanding whether they are ready to go on a selection campaign to a particular campus. 

The four Ws include: Which institute to shortlist, when to approach, whom to hire, and what  to offer. If either of the four Ws is unclear, then the start of the campus hiring season will be dicey and the goal of filling positions with capable, reliable, and dedicated employees would not be possible to achieve. 

Depending on the competencies a particular TA team is looking for, they can decide which campuses to go to, approach the campuses at the right time and keep in mind the budget set aside for the campus recruits. 

“The more campus participation you go through over the years, you understand what job roles you need to hire for. You also get a good heat map of where the quality candidates are and then understand what you need to do in order to appeal to them,” Gupta said. 

Needs of the modern workforce 

The next step is getting an understanding of what the new generation of employees is expecting out of their first workplace. It goes well beyond just having a great salary. More often than not, the top-quality candidates are attracted towards a company if they believe in the mission and vision of the firm and feel that they are going to be working towards a higher purpose, they are more likely to be more dedicated and invested in the company. 

“The overall proposition in terms of the kind of work that they are doing and how they can contribute to the society and the world at large is crucial,” added Saxena.

Pre-placement engagement 

Going to campuses prior to the placement days can help companies get an understanding about the campus dynamics and even appeal to the potential candidates well before the placement days. That’s when firms have the opportunity to build their employer brand and proposition, Gupta added. 

Having a relationship with the students who are the potential talent pool, prior to entering the campus, and building continuous relationships on campus is the key to keep candidates engaged. 

“Most companies are investing much earlier than the placement week. Asking us to help them tell a story on campus,” Gupta said, adding that designing a dedicated pre-placement week messaging campaign can go a long way in not only hiring the right cultural fit but also help build the employer brand. 

For companies such as GE, leveraging the brand name in the right way becomes crucial. If a startup is targeting the most talented graduates coming out of tech and business college campuses, then they would need to develop an employer brand message that resonates with the millennials well before the placement week begins. 

Screening the candidates with the right Assessment Tools

Knowing which candidates would make it to the next round of interviews is the next most important step. And, that’s where leveraging the right technology and assessment tools comes into the picture. Most organizations today are moving away from the rigorous tests that are designed with the principle of eliminating those candidates who might not be good test-takers and replacing the system with a Selection Strategy which takes into account factors such as hiring for the right culture fit in addition to the technical competencies. 

In addition to the technical know-how, especially for the roles related to AI, data analytics, machine learning, etc, softer skills such as the will to work towards solving a problem and finding the solutions by working collaboratively are also valuable, said Gupta. The right assessment tools help you screen for all such behavioral skills as well. said. 

Remote proctoring tools can drastically reduce the time and effort that companies put into testing candidates. It can not only test the students at a time that they are best prepared, AI-based technology can analyze the face of the person to avoid discrepancy. Companies are also innovating with their assessments from hackathons, case study competitions (Like Amazon Ace Challenge –add link) to engage candidates, and shortlist to shortlist the right candidates who are interested in joining the company.  

Conducting effective interviews 

India Inc. relies on interviews to identify the right candidates. However, there is no clear standardization of interviews even within the same organization. Having a clear and precise process for the way in which interviews are conducted, or rather, the parameters by which TA leaders can assess whether a particular candidate is suitable for a particular job role can help in conducting effective interviews that are transparent in nature and also scalable throughout the organization. 

Final steps

Campuses are a repository of new-age skills and the way to tap into this talent pool is to be honest about the company’s vision, keeping an open-door policy, and inculcating the culture of failing fast and learning faster. 

“Be honest about what you are trying to achieve, give them a platform where they can achieve what they want to achieve,” said Gupta. “You need to be there to tell them that it is okay to fail--fail quickly, recoup, and attempt again.” 

Source: People matters